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The jangle of the landline on the desk interrupted her thoughts and startled Alex, causing her to spring out of her seat like a jack in the box.
“I’ll get it.” Alex quickly took the few steps to grab the receiver.
“Oh, no, you don’t. I’m still recovering from the last time you answered my phone,” she said, as she reached for it. Alex sighed again and returned to the loveseat.
“Deb, what a surprise.” They chatted briefly before Deb said Dr. Chare wanted to speak with her. “Really? Sure, I’ll wait.” She wondered why he was calling.
“Why, Dr. Chare, what a pleasure to hear your voice again. My favorite history department chairman. What a surprise.” Her days at the department rippled through her memory.
While she talked, Alex sat on the edge of her seat.
“Teach? You’d like me to teach this term.” Her mind quickly shot to Kennedy King Cooper.
“No, no, I couldn’t possibly do that.” She paused. And be anywhere near that snob.
“No, really, Thom. If there were some way I could, I certainly would.”How about your kicking that Cooper jerk out? Then we could talk.
“I have a deadline coming up.” Again, a pause.
“You did? I didn’t have you pegged for the romantic type. Oh, you did it mostly because I wrote it? How sweet. Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
Another pause.
“I realize Dr. Kalinger’s illness straps you and you’re short on teaching staff. But I’m sure there is some young, eager new graduate out there waiting for the position, just dying to get the experience.”
Yet another pause. With every pause, Alex leaned forward a fraction of inch more. If she leaned farther, she would fall of the couch.
“No, I really can’t. You see, I’ve also got—”now, how did Blake describe them“—my cousin and her fiancé from…”
“Kansas.” Blake filled in the dead air, only momentarily taking his attention off the book.
“Uh, Kansas,” she repeated the prompting into the phone.
She chatted with the chair a few more minutes. “Yes, I promise. If I change my mind, I’ll call you. But don’t hold your breath.”
She replaced the receiver on its cradle and said, “Good God, that was close. For a while I didn’t think he was going to take no for an answer.”
Alex gave her a quizzical look. “Did you just turn down an offer to teach in the same department that Professor Cooper teaches,” she asked, shaking her head.
“Yeah, I did. He asked me to fill in for a professor who was going to be out the entire term because of an illness.”
“Why didn’t you say yes?” Alex asked.
“Precisely because of Cooper. The last thing I need is to come face to face with him on a daily basis.”
Alex shot off the couch. “Let me get this straight. You had a chance to fulfill your destiny and you purposely threw it away?” She went pale, waving her hands frantically. “Don’t you know love never knocks twice?”
She shook her head, laughing.
“What? What’s so funny?”
“You. Where did you get that corny phrase ‘love never knocks twice’? It sounds like the title of a romance novel.”
Alex stopped dead in her tracks, her entire countenance changed.
“That’s because it is. I read it last night. It was on the nightstand in our bedroom. And just for your information, it was a grand love story.”
“Love isn’t knocking at all.” JJ shook her head.
