The Art of Romance (15 page)

“Thanks for joining us again this year for our faculty holiday celebration. I hope you all had a wonderful fall semester and are looking forward to your time off for the next few weeks. I know I am.”

Mild tittering and chuckles from the crowd.

“But you didn’t come here to hear me talk. So I’ll turn the evening’s festivities over to Dr. Edgerton in just a moment. I do want to take this opportunity to say thank you to each of you for the wonderful work you do in leading, mentoring, guiding, and teaching our students. James Robertson University wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t have the stellar reputation we have, without a stellar faculty. So thank you, and happy holidays!”

Applause and a few whistles emerged from the crowd that must have been over two hundred people.

A distinguished woman who looked to be in her fifties took the stage. Dressed in a red sequined dress, she commanded Dylan’s attention simply by the fact he couldn’t look away from the sparkly garment.

“You’ve been waiting and wondering for a year, while others have been plotting and planning. We had so many good submissions this year, it was hard to narrow it down to a manageable number, but somehow we did it. So let’s get started. And remember, if you feel like dancing, please do so!”

The music professor introduced the musicians on the stage—a jazz quartet made up of other music department faculty, and they got things rolling with a swing version of “O Christmas Tree.”

Once the music started, everyone went back to mingling and chatting. Dylan looked around again, not looking for anyone in particular. Where had she disappeared to?

He excused himself from Dr. Holtz and his wife and made his way around the outside edges of the assemblage. A few people he’d already met stopped him to introduce him to others, all of whom were quite welcoming when they learned he’d be teaching next semester. This reaction was a bit disarming to him—he couldn’t remember speaking more than once or twice with any of the part-time instructors or adjuncts at Watts-Maxwell.

After several familiar holiday songs performed by vocalists and musicians from the music department, a quartet from the science department—someone told him it pretty much represented the entire full-time science faculty—got up and sang a pretty good rendition of “Silent Night,” which was followed by one of the music professors who got up and sang “Eight Days of Happiness,” a Hanukkah song with a Latin beat, transitioning into a more holiday-specific portion of the program.

When Dylan reached the front of the room, he looked back the way he’d come. Still no sign of the person he wasn’t really looking for.

He tried to convince himself he wasn’t bothered by Caylor’s disappearance. He told himself that he was looking for her because he imagined Bridget Wetzler would be somewhere nearby, and since he’d come as Bridget’s date, he should at least check in with her. He hoped, watching the couple of dozen couples dancing near the stage, that Bridget wouldn’t expect him to ask her to dance.

Dr. Edgerton’s speaking voice came as a jolt after so much uninterrupted music. “After last year’s party, we had so many requests for this next group, we decided to give them the last few spots on the program. Put your hands together for the Three Redheads.”

Dylan turned. There, on stage, were Caylor, Bridget, and another woman of about the same age. And though they did all have red hair, they couldn’t have looked more unalike. Bridget was of average height and plump. Her dyed-red hair was pulled up into a crown of curls atop her head. The woman Dylan didn’t know was even shorter than Bridget and tiny—almost frail-looking. Her red hair was long and straight and pulled around so it hung over her left shoulder in the front.

And then there was Caylor. The turquoise of her dress—almost the same color as her eyes—made her hair, in its saucy, flipped-out shortness, and her ivory skin glow with vibrancy. The dress showed off her perfect hourglass figure and long legs to perfection.

He’d already started reaching for his phone to snap a photo of her so he could reference it for the drawing of her already forming in his mind—but stopped himself. He might be tasked with teaching the students to paint portraits, but he’d stick to more mundane, less compulsion-driven subjects. After all, it had been his obsession with the artwork on the covers of the romance novels his mother kept hidden all over the house years ago that had led to his compulsion with replicating them and then to his moving on to original work in the same vein.

The keyboardist started playing something that sounded like the tinkling of a music box. Bridget sang the verses solo; then the other two came in with the harmony on the chorus, singing about “the Christmas tree angel.” He’d never heard the song before but found himself swaying to the gentle swing of the rhythm. They sounded just like those sister groups from the 1940s.

Unlike during everyone else’s performances, everyone paid attention when Caylor’s group sang. And Dylan could see why. Though Bridget’s voice alone wasn’t spectacular—nowhere near as good as the music professors who’d sang—when the three of them blended together, it was dazzling. And apparently he wasn’t the only one who thought so, judging by the applause and cheers they received when the song ended.

In their next song, sung by all three in perfect harmony, they extolled all of the good things about Christmas from each letter of the word—another piece he’d never heard, and another one that received the high praise of applause and cheers.

The three women shifted places—Caylor moving to the front of the stage, and the other two standing off to one side behind her. The music started, and Dylan couldn’t help smiling at the Irish jig sound of the intro.

With what sounded like a perfect Irish accent and a strong alto voice he could have listened to for hours, Caylor sang “Christmas in Killarney,” one of Gramps’s favorite Christmas songs from Bing Crosby.

Caylor scanned the crowd as she sang, but when her eyes met Dylan’s, her smile broadened and she winked at him before looking away again.

Winked at him. Though he’d jolted internally at the gesture—a good jolt—he couldn’t stop the questions it raised. Why wink at him and no one else in the room? Was she flirting with him? Had she taken Dr. Putnam’s comment earlier about their making a cute couple too seriously?

After she sang through the song a full time, the jazz quartet transitioned into a bridge. Caylor, Bridget, and the other woman all kicked off their shoes and began dancing an Irish jig together, laughing at their own missteps and encouraging everyone in the audience to do the same. Picking out the dance professors was pretty easy.

Worried about both his reaction to Caylor and whatever might be going through her mind about him, Dylan slipped up the side of the room and out the door. He’d send Bridget an e-mail, telling her something had come up, to try to excuse his rude behavior. Recovering his coat from the coat check, he fled the building into the cold night outside.

He’d just come out of a horrible relationship. He couldn’t fall for someone else. He needed time to figure out who he was and who he wanted to become. But he liked Caylor; he couldn’t deny it. Never before had the mere sight of a woman ignited the fire of inspiration in him like her presence did. And she was the kind of woman that a man would be stupid to hesitate with—because someone else would come along, see her wonderful qualities, and snatch her up.

He stopped in the middle of the quadrangle and looked up. Pinpricks of light glittered against the indigo sky. “If You’re still there, God, and if I haven’t burned all my bridges with You yet, You’re going to have to help me out with this. Show me who I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to be doing. And don’t let Caylor…”

He felt stupid saying it aloud, because he couldn’t imagine that she’d want to have anything to do with him, at least not romantically, if she ever learned about his relationship with Rhonda. He wouldn’t blame her one bit. But his heart still cried out,
Don’t let Caylor fall in love with someone else while I’m still trying to get my head on straight
.

I
think it’s my fault.” Caylor took the lid off her cup to get to the last few drops of the peppermint-spiked hot chocolate. “He caught me staring at him a couple of times from across the room, and then when I was singing, he looked so dumbfounded, I couldn’t help myself and I winked at him. Next thing I know, he’s running from the room like someone pulled the fire alarm.”

Flannery downed the last bit of her pumpkin pie–flavored latte. “Has Bridget heard from him?”

“She forwarded the e-mail he sent last night—said an emergency came up so he had to leave while we were singing and that’s why he didn’t stick around to say good-bye. She also said he called this morning to apologize.” Caylor stood and tossed her cup in the trash can.

“One thing’s for sure—that boy was raised right.” Flannery shoved the napkins and stirrers they’d used into her cup before tossing it. “Most guys would have left it at the e-mail.”

“Maybe there really was an emergency.” Leave it to Zarah to give someone the benefit of the doubt. She used the water pitcher at the sugaring station to wet some napkins, then wiped off the table.

“Maybe. But after Putnam’s crack about us making a nice couple, I have to wonder if that spooked Dylan.” Caylor dug her Christmas shopping list out of her purse. “There are a couple of things I need to pick up here in the bookstore before we hit the other stores.”

The new shopping center in Murfreesboro, with its town center style, had become one of Caylor’s favorite places to shop, despite the long drive. And she was thankful Zarah and Flannery had agreed to drive down, too—especially since they couldn’t come together because they all had other obligations this afternoon and wanted to have as much time for shopping as possible.

“We need to check to see if they have your books before we do anything else.” Flannery headed off to the Christian fiction section.

“If they have any of my books,” Caylor said to Zarah, following at a leisurely pace, “it’s more likely that they’ll be in the romance section, and they’ll have a different name on the cover.”

“Why won’t they carry your new books when they’ll still stock the old ones?” Zarah was always something of the odd man out when Flannery and Caylor started talking about the publishing industry, and she rarely asked questions, usually just sat and listened. So they tried not to do it too much when she was with them. But if she asked, it meant she really wanted to know and wasn’t just humoring Caylor.

“Even though the six books I wrote under the pseudonym are out, because I’m writing the books for the Christian market under my own name, I’m considered a new author. I’m not cross-marketing these with the other books—in fact, the publisher and I really don’t want my readers to know that the other books are out there. So it’s harder for me to get picked up by the big-box stores because my sales numbers aren’t high enough for them to want to take the risk of getting them in, only to have to return them when they don’t sell.”

“But they’d sell if they’d get them in. You’re from here—well, from Nashville—and you know so many people in this area who would come in and buy your books if they carried them.” Zarah’s dark brows knit in consternation.

“And I’m sure those are points that the salesperson from the publishing house made. But it’s a crazy business. Thank goodness for Christian bookstores and online retailers.”

They caught up with Flannery, who was scanning the shelves. “D…D…D…E—here we go.” She crouched down to read the spines of the books on the bottom shelf.

Caylor scanned the spines at the top of the next stack. “Here.” She pulled the single copy of her second book off the shelf. “And this copy has been here since the last time I came down.” She flipped it open to the center to reveal bookmarks for the first and third books. “I put these in here.”

“If I didn’t know how much publishers pay to have their authors’ books faced out on the shelves, I’d tell you to put it face out.” Flannery continued scanning the shelves, running her fingers along the publishing houses’ logos at the bottoms, stopping whenever she came to one from Lindsley House. The Christian fiction division was Flannery’s responsibility, and she took it quite seriously.

Caylor reshelved her book, tucking it between volumes from two authors she’d met at the big Christian publishing trade show this past summer. “It would look kind of silly sitting there all alone, face out.”

“It would look like there had been a bunch of them and it was the only one left.” Flannery crouched low again to look at the bottom shelves. She finally reached the end of the row.

“Seen enough?” Caylor stood with her elbow propped against the upper shelf of the closest bookcase. “Enough to justify writing off the mileage to drive down here, anyway?”

“Don’t act like you aren’t going to write it off, too.” Flannery raised an eyebrow in a saucy expression.

“Can we get on with the shopping now?” Caylor asked, waving her list at Flannery.

“By all means.” Flannery curtseyed—which looked quite funny in her tight jeans and tunic-length sweater.