Settling Ashes: A New Adult/College Romance (The Ashes Series Book 2) (15 page)

“You won’t,” I said simply. “I stay with you. We’ll figure this out together.”

And he kept his eyes on me as he worked to make my world crash around me in bits and pieces of ecstasy that could only last for a little while.

Fifteen

Clay

“I’m going to see Dr. Schilling today,” Paige announced the next morning.

I stared at her, flabbergasted. “No, you’re not.”

“Yes. I am,” she said firmly. “I want to ask him to put me on the schedule again. To work.”

“Paige,” I groaned. “That is a horrible idea. How am I supposed to protect you when you insist on putting yourself out there all alone? I can’t sit at work with you.”

“Clay,” she admonished, coming to put her arms around me where I sat on a barstool eating a piece of toast. “If I worked in a public place, it’d be one thing. But I’m just an assistant to a Psychology professor on campus. There’s not much safer than that. I’ll inform him of the situation, and that will just be one more person keeping an eye on me. Okay?”

I frowned, staring at her unhappily. I didn’t like this at all. I never liked her boss to begin with; I always thought he had a thing for Paige. And he wasn’t so secret about hiding it from me. But now I had even more reason for her not to work there. Or anywhere.

But I knew Paige. If she wanted to do this, she was going to, and I either needed to support her or get out of her way.

“Alright,” I said grudgingly. “I’m coming with you to talk to him today, though. And I may very well sit with you at work sometimes too. No arguments.”

She smiled and clapped her hands together. “Great! Let’s get going.”

I drove us the few blocks from her apartment to campus, parking in a metered spot outside the Psychology building.

When we walked into Professor Schilling’s office, the receptionist smiled happily at Paige.

“Paige!” she exclaimed loudly. “I didn’t know you were coming back today!”

Paige went around the desk and greeted the perky blond woman. I crossed my arms, watching her.

“I wanted to talk to--” Paige began.

The door behind the receptionist’s desk opened suddenly, and Professor Schilling exited his office.

“Paige,” he said. He opened his arms, and Paige hugged him. The vein in my neck throbbed. “My goodness, it’s nice to see you! Are you all right?”

He pulled back and searched her face, and then glanced over to where I stood glaring at him.

“I see you’ve brought Clay,” he said evenly.

His dark hair was slicked back from his face as usual, and he was just as well dressed as always. His red sweater stretched over a fit frame with a checked collard shirt beneath it. His khaki slacks were tighter than I thought a professor should wear, but I guessed the guy was only in his mid-thirties.

I stepped forward when I thought his hands had been on Paige long enough. “Good morning, Dr. Schilling.”

“Hello, Clay,” he said.

“Dr. Schilling?” Paige said. “Can we come in and talk to you for a minute?”

“Hold my calls,” the professor ordered his receptionist.

I glanced at her. She nodded at his request.

“Of course,” she answered, smiling.

“Come in, come in,” Dr. Schilling said.

We entered his office and I pulled one of the comfortable chairs across from his desk out for Paige, and then sat in the one adjacent to her. Dr. Schilling sat in his big brown desk chair, pressing the fingers of his hands together and leaning forward.

“So,” he began. “What am I missing here? You left on such short notice, Paige. I wasn’t sure what happened, but I knew something was amiss.”

“You,” he continued, sliding his gaze to me. “I know exactly what happened to you.”

“He’s innocent,” Paige said quickly. “I left because of a misunderstanding, not because I thought he killed Hannah. I’m back now, and I want to come back to work. Only--” She glanced at me.

“Only I think I might be in danger now, too. Someone is trying to kill me.”

The professor’s eyebrows shot up, and his face went slack.

“You…what?”

Paige nodded, a sad smile tugging at her lips. “Yeah. But I still want to work. I don’t want this person dictating what I can and can’t do with my life.”

“But,” Dr. Schilling spluttered. “You should be under police protection! Are you?”

Paige shook her head. “I haven’t filed a formal complaint. Because I’m so connected to Clay, they’ll just think it’s him. I don’t want to place any more attention on him than I have to in this situation. But when his name is cleared—and it will be cleared—this will all be over because it will mean they’ve found the person who killed Hannah and is after me.”

Professor Schilling sat back in his chair, frowning and staring at Paige. His fingers tapped nervously on his desk as he contemplated what she was asking of him.

“Are you sure you want to work?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Paige firmly.

He sighed. “So stubborn. And brave. All right. Of course you can come back to work if that’s what you want. At least I can keep any eye on you here.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“I’ll probably come with her sometimes, too,” I said forcefully. “To keep an eye on her myself.”

The professor allowed his eyes land on me once more. “But aren’t you the problem?”

“Excuse me?” I said angrily.

“Well, someone is after Paige because of you, right? They don’t want to hurt her. They just want to keep her away from you?”

“Um, tell that to that broken arm you see there,” I retorted, rolling my eyes. “They
do
want to hurt her. And whether I’m with her or not, they try to get to her. So I’m going to protect her.”

“Oh, yes,” he spat sarcastically. “You’ve been doing a stellar job of that so far.”

I stood, pressing my palms flat against the desk. “If you have a problem with me, that’s fine.  I could care less. But Paige’s safety is the number one thing on my mind. Don’t question that. If she’s here, I will be, too. The. End.”

He stared at me, his twitching jaw the only obvious sign of his anger. Finally, he nodded.

“Okay,” he said softly. “You can start tomorrow, Paige.”

“Great!” she exclaimed, standing quickly. I knew she wanted to get me out of there. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Professor.”

We walked back out to the waiting area.

“Bye, Krista,” Paige said to the receptionist.

“Bye!” she called out brightly as we left.

“See,” Paige said, wrapping her hand in mine as we walked out of the building. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

I looked down at her, narrowing my eyes. “It was torture, and you know it.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Clay. For letting me do what I need to do.”

I stopped, pulling her into my arms. “I’m just going to reiterate the fact that I don’t like it. But I want you to be happy. The minute something goes wrong, you stop working there. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she said happily.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to walk you to class. And if I’m going to graduate in May and start making a life for us, I’d better go to class, too.”

She smiled. “We’re talking about the future?”

I stared at her, surprised. “Why does that shock you?”

“We just haven’t before. We have a lot going on.”

I hadn’t told her that she
was
my future? God, why did I continue to screw up with this woman?

“We’re going to fix that,” I told her firmly.

I walked her to class, and then took myself to my own, thinking about how I was going to show my girlfriend that I wanted a life with her.

Paige

After spending the next morning in my only class, I made my way to the Psychology building, where I worked until late afternoon. I spent a cheerful day filing with one good arm and running errands around campus for Professor Schilling

He seemed especially watchful and attentive today, most likely because of the information I shared with him about my potential murder.

I also endured a steady stream of text messages from a worried-to-death Clay, who was unable to attend work with me because he actually had a life to continue to live. He was a senior, architecture wasn’t exactly an easy major, and he had classes to attend and studying to do.

None of which, he insisted, was more important than my safety. But I’d be damned if he was going to fall behind in his studies because he was trying to protect me from someone we couldn’t even find.

So we agreed that I’d work here today, and he’d work at home on what he needed to study, and he’d pick me up when my day was over.

At five o’clock, I stopped in Dr. Schilling’s office to say goodbye, and told Krista to have a good weekend as she also gathered her things to go home. Clay opened the door to the office just as I was about to walk out of it, and he grabbed me up in a hug that squeezed my still-sore ribs and lifted me off my feet.

“Baby,” he sighed into my hair. “I missed you so bad today.”

I sighed just as happily into the woodsy-scented skin of his neck and chuckled.

“It will get easier, being away from each other. Right?”

“Never,” he disagreed, setting me back down gently on my feet. “It’ll never get easier. But when this person is caught, and behind bars or dead by my hand, things may be tolerable.”

I nodded, and took his arm as we walked down the building steps and off toward the parking lot.

“It’s Friday night,” he remarked, looking at me sideways. “We haven’t had a normal one of those in Rutherford in awhile. And things still aren’t normal, but what do you want to do tonight?”

I groaned. “I’m sure Gill wants to go out. And I’m game…as long as I get to spend some alone time with you first.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” he said, grinning broadly. “So I made dinner reservations. Nice ones. And then we can meet up with everyone at Matchstick’s. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said happily. I could handle a night out at a crowded club as long as I was with Clay. “So I need to go home and change.”

He nodded as he buckled me into the Land Rover. “We’ll go to your place and make sure Gillian’s there. Then I’ll leave you for a bit to go change. I’ll be back to get you in half an hour? Plan?”

“Plan,” I answered, leaning over the console to take a nip of his ear.

“Keep that up,” he rumbled, reaching over to grip my thigh in one strong hand. “And we won’t make it to dinner.”

~**~

“Where is everyone?” I asked Clay, as the hostess guided us into the dining room of Madre’s. Madre’s was an upscale Cuban restaurant in town. Cuban cuisine was rare in our part of the South, so the prices here soared above any place I was used to eating. But Clay had insisted that this was where we were eating tonight, and I ended up succumbing to his wishes because it seemed so important to him.

“We’re closed tonight,” the hostess informed me with a wink.

“You’re closed?” I asked, my mouth dropping open. “But then why…?”

Clay pulled out my chair and I sat, looking up at him in wonder. “We’re the only ones here tonight?”

He tilted up the corner of his mouth in his quirky smile. “I covet privacy with you these days.”

“I’ve never been the reason for closing down a restaurant before,” I said, biting my bottom lip. I was unable to keep the beaming smile off my face.

“Paige,” Clay said seriously as a waiter filled our water glasses. “I plan to spend my life doing things for you that have never been done before. I will never grow tired of surprising you or trying to make you happy. Putting a smile on your face is my mission in life, and making sure you have everything you need to function and be a whole person is everything I need to make
me
happy.”

I stared at him. “Is this because I brought up the fact we haven’t talked about the future?”

He leaned forward, taking my hands across the table and clasping them in his big, warm ones.

“Yes and no. It hit me when we talked today that I hadn’t been discussing the future with you. We’ve only been together a few months. I know that’s not much time. But the situations we’ve endured together, making it through to the other side with our relationship intact…well, that tells me a whole hell of a lot about what we can be together, Paige. I want you. With everything that’s been going on basically since we met, I haven’t had a chance to show you. I can’t wait until Hannah’s murder is solved and the person who’s been terrorizing you is dealt with, so we can start this amazing life we are meant to live together.”

I held his gaze, mesmerized by his sweet words and the sincere, fiercely protective expression on his face.

“I want you, too,” I said simply. “More than I’ve ever wanted anything, Clay, I want a life with you. I hope that when all of this is said and done, we’re able to make that happen.”

“There’s no hoping,” he said. “We
will
come out on the other side of this stronger than ever, Paige. I promise.”

Looking into those eyes of his that were so full of love and longing, I believed him.

Sixteen

Clay

I kept my eyes on Paige all through dinner, because I wanted her to know that what I was saying was completely sincere, and that I was serious about a future with her. Renting out a restaurant for her was just the beginning.