Always (Spiral of Bliss #5) (4 page)

CHAPTER THREE

DEAN

November 16

“YOU MUST ALLOW ME TO
TELL
you how ardently I admire and love you.”

Not bad.

Though Darcy was kind of a dick at the ball, at least he didn’t skulk around longing for Lizzy and never going after her. The guy had a pair.

And I reluctantly admit his confession of love was more poetic than mine had been. Though come to think of it, Liv was the one who said, “I love you” first, when we were staying at a motel in Castleford after visiting her aunt and uncle.

For a second, all I could do was stare at her. Trying to absorb the shockwave right to my soul.

She
loved me. The only woman who’d ever brought me to my knees. The woman whose name sounded in rhythm with my heartbeat. The woman who had me at first look.

“I’m really glad to hear that, beauty. Because I love you too.”

No, it wasn’t all that poetic. But nothing could compare to the raw, honest truth that thickened the air in that dingy hotel room. Nothing could compare to the way Liv was looking at me, her eyes filled with certainty, like she was just telling me something she’d known all along. Nothing could compare to the extraordinary realization that this was
it
. She was mine.

“Hey, Dean.”

The voice breaks me out of my thoughts. I turn my office chair away from the window toward the door.

“Approved.” Jessica Burke, my former grad-student turned colleague comes into my office, waving a printed sheet of paper. “The World Heritage Center will take five students for a two-week period next April to work on the medieval churches in Kosovo.”

“That’s fantastic.” I put the book on my desk and scan the paper from the director of the WHC.

“Are you reading
Pride and Prejudice
?” Jessica asks.

“Yeah. Liv got all up in arms because I’d never read it, so I’m correcting my character flaw.”

Jessica blinks. “You’ve never read
Pride and Prejudice
?”

What is it with women and this book?

“I’m reading it now,” I tell her. Before she can get on my case too, I gesture to the WHC paper. “We should start putting together a call for applications soon. These are the students we should recruit for the World Heritage Studies program.”

“Already done.” Jessica sits in the chair in front of my desk. “And we have three new applications this week. I talked to Britta from the University of Munich, and she hopes she can participate in the ecology program.”

For the hundredth time, I think of how glad I am that the university board took my recommendation to hire Jessica as the assistant director of the new World Heritage Studies program.

In partnership with UNESCO and the World Heritage Center in Paris, the WHS program at King’s University will offer courses in historical conservation, ecology, globalization, cultural change, architecture, geology, and heritage management—with plenty of opportunities to work at sites around the world. It’s a union of everything I’ve worked on for the past ten years and feels like the culmination of my entire career.

Jessica and I go over more details before I walk to the lecture hall for an undergrad class, then hold office hours. At two-thirty, I shrug into my coat and head out to pick Nicholas up from school.

Cartoon turkeys, smiling pilgrims, and fruit-filled cornucopias decorate the windows of the shops on Avalon Street. November is one of my favorite times of year in Mirror Lake—red-and-gold leaves carpet the sidewalks, the air is brisk, and we’re looking forward to the holidays, which Liv always puts her heart and soul into making magical.

Buses line the drop-off zone of Mirror Lake Elementary, and the parking lot is full of cars. I park on the street and walk to the entrance, where other parents are standing around waiting for the bell to ring.

“Dad.” Nicholas’s yell has me turning toward the school doors. Streams of children are starting to pour out toward their parents and the buses.

“Hey, slugger.” I bend to capture him in my arms, grateful that he’s still okay with me hugging him in public. “Good day?”

“Yeah. I got my Readersaurus badge.” He holds up a ribboned badge embellished with a picture of a cartoon dinosaur reading a book. “That means I finished all the reports for the books we were supposed to read.”

“Nice work. Let’s see how it looks on you.” I pin the badge to his jacket. We take a second to admire it before starting toward the car.

“Bye, Henry,” Nicholas calls to his best friend, who is trotting toward a waiting school bus.

“Bye, Nicholas.” Henry stops on the bus steps and waves frantically at Nicholas, as if they’re not going to see each other for a full year rather than one night.

After getting Nicholas buckled into his car seat, I drive to the Wonderland Café. The front porch is decorated with cornstalks, pumpkins, and the Scarecrow from the
Wizard of Oz
, and the interior is redolent with the scents of chocolate and fragrant tea.

Liv is delivering a cup of coffee and a glass of chocolate milk to Archer and Kelsey’s table in the Mad Hatter dining room. Nicholas rushes toward them, colliding with Liv in a bear hug before going to greet Archer and Kelsey.

“Hi, professor.” Liv smiles and approaches me.

Ah, hell, but my wife is beautiful. Just watching her weave around the tables, her purple Wonderland Café apron molded against the curves of her breasts and hips, her long ponytail swinging back and forth like a swathe of silk… I could grab her ponytail right now, tilt her head back and—

“…the toilet?”

I blink. “What?”

“The toilet,” Liv repeats, coming to a stop in front of me. “Did you get the leak fixed?”

“Yeah, I took care of it before I went to work.”

Clearly I’ll have to put my other thoughts on hold until tonight.

“Hey Mom, can I have a cookie?” Nicholas asks.

“Yes, but just one. Ask Allie, and don’t forget to say please.”

Nicholas darts toward the front counter. I follow Liv back to Archer and Kelsey’s table.

“Hey, man, a few grad students and I are getting together for a pick-up football game Saturday morning,” I tell my brother. “You want to join us?”

“Nah, thanks, but I’ve got to work.”

Kelsey frowns at him. “You don’t work on Saturday mornings.”

“I’m covering for someone.” Archer takes a swig of his chocolate milk.

Something faintly irritated radiates from Kelsey, though I can’t figure out the source. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve asked Archer to do something and he has other plans, but I don’t take his rejection personally.

My brother and I are still not entirely at ease with each other—probably never will be—but we worked on the historic railroad project together for a while, we grab a beer occasionally, and we see each other when Liv and Kelsey drag us out to a concert or something. After thirty years of estrangement, Archer and I have come farther than I ever thought we would.

Hell, there was a time when I didn’t know if we’d ever see each other again. Now we’re living in the same town, and he and my best friend are in love.

Life sure changes.

“Hello, my dears,” remarks a familiar voice. “I thought I’d find you here.”

We turn to see elderly-but-spry Florence Wickham approaching, dressed in a pink suit with a pillbox hat perched on her snow-white hair. I half expect her to pat my chest or squeeze my biceps like she usually does in greeting, but instead she turns her twinkling blue gaze on Archer.

“Oh, Archer,” she says with a sigh. “Aren’t you just marvelous?”

He blinks. “Um, thanks.”

“It was
heroic,
what you did,” Florence continues. “To think of what might have happened if you hadn’t been there.”

Archer and Kelsey exchange puzzled glances.

“Hadn’t been where, Florence?” Kelsey asks.

“Why, in the storm, dear.”

I look at Liv, but she seems like she doesn’t know what Florence is talking about either.

“Didn’t you see last night’s special episode of
Storm Hunters
?” Florence asks.

“It aired last night?” Kelsey says. “They were supposed to air it after Thanksgiving. Ratings are in such a slump that it might be our last chance for
Storm Hunters
to avoid cancellation.”

“Well, if this doesn’t give you a boost, nothing will.” Florence pulls a phone out of her pink handbag. “I get text alerts whenever there’s a new episode. And though I’ve seen them all, this was the best one yet. Archer, I do believe you’re about to go viral.”

She whisks her fingers over the screen of her phone.

“Did you watch the special episode?” Kelsey asks Liv.

“No, but we have our DVR set to record them all,” Liv says. “I didn’t know there was a new one either.”

For several years now, Kelsey has been the director of the Spiral Project, a mobile storm-chasing unit comprised of meteorologists, photographers, students, and scientists who head out every year for several weeks to collect data on tornados. Kelsey started the project with funding from the Adventure Channel and an agreement for them to film the storm chasing as a documentary reality show.

Storm Hunters
has garnered a large and loyal audience over the years, resulting in a great deal of fan mail for Kelsey and several of the other more prominent scientists, but the past year has seen ratings slide to the point that the cable station brass are thinking of cancelling the show.

Archer has always had a less visible role on
Storm Hunters
, mostly because he sometimes stays in Mirror Lake to run his garage and doesn’t go on the road with the Spiral Project as often as he did at the beginning. But he and Kelsey love working together, so if Archer can fit it into his schedule, he goes along as driver, mechanic, and all-purpose handyman.

“Here it is,” Florence trills, putting her phone on the table.

We all lean in to look at the YouTube video that is just starting to play. The noise of a storm and thunder crackles over the small screen, and sheets of rain spill from the sky.

Kelsey is in the driver’s seat of the armored, storm-chasing vehicle, and Archer—soaked to the skin—is standing outside the open window. Both of them are shouting to be heard over the noise.

“We need to leave,” Kelsey says.

“Three minutes,” Archer shouts. “I’ll be right back.”

“Dammit, Archer, it’s getting closer,” Kelsey yells, and the camera pans to the right to show a funnel cloud forming from the low-hanging black sky.

Archer runs off into a field scattered with trees and thick bushes. The camera follows him. He slogs through the wet grass, his boots caking with mud. Rain splashes against the camera lens. He stops beside a row of bushes and bends to peer beneath it.

“Archer, it’s starting to hail,” Kelsey calls. “We’re leaving right now!”

He waves, then reaches beneath the bushes with both hands. He drags out a mud-splattered, soaking wet, shivering dog who struggles to escape his grip. From the distance, it looks like a medium-sized dog black dog with white markings. Archer grabs the dog and hauls it up into his arms before striding back to the car.

“There,” Florence sighs, pressing a hand to her chest. “
Look
at him.”

On the screen, a flash of lightning illuminates Archer like he’s some sort of animal rescue action hero with his shirt plastered to his chest and his hair wet. He holds the dog closer and slogs through the increasing hail toward the car.

“Wow,” Liv remarks with a little too much admiration.

I pinch her ass. She shoots me a secret, apologetic smile.

“
Wow
is right,” Kelsey murmurs, gazing raptly at the screen.

As Archer gets closer to the camera, the lens zeroes in on his steely expression, his jaw set with determination and his muscles straining with effort as the funnel cloud bears down on him from behind.

Off camera, Kelsey swears. Another guy appears to yank open the back door of the armored car.

“No,” Kelsey snaps, getting out of the driver’s seat in a flash of anger. “We are not putting that mangy creature in this car. Put it in the damned truck.”