Page 859 of One More Kiss

Much Ado About Lu

J.A. Hardt

Chapter1

Asheville College

August 1955

Lu Danvers smoothedher starched skirt and adjusted the delicate Peter Pan collar that seemed to grow tighter with every breath. Her gaze darted around the front of the administration building. With no one in view, she pulled a pewter hip flask from the red handbag hanging at her elbow. She unscrewed the cap, the scent of whiskey assailing her nostrils before her lips even touched the spout. This was probably a bad idea, but she took a swig anyway, needing the liquid courage to face one of two possibilities: she’d been called to the Dean’s office to be fired— or to receive the promotion she’d been dying to get for years.

She wasn’t sure which prospect was the most terrifying.

“A little early for that, isn’t it?”

Lu jumped at the deep voice rumbling from the side of the building and turned to see a dark-haired man in glasses and an expensive-looking striped navy suit moving in her direction.

She wiped her mouth with her fingertips and straightened her spine, affronted by how this stranger dared to question her activities.

Even if drinking on campus was frowned upon at anything except sanctioned events.

She narrowed her eyes. “I would have put it in my coffee if I’d had time before I left home. But I needed this more today.”

He waved off the bite in her tone and reached another hand in her direction. “No, no. No objections from me. I won’t tell. If you share a little with me.”

Lu swallowed another drink for good measure before handing the flask over to the attractive stranger and took a deep breath. He was close enough she caught the hint of spice and grass and sunshine clinging to him. Obviously cologne, as his smooth hands exposed he’d likely not worked a hot day in the sun in a long time, if ever.

He flashed a blindingly bright grin. Her belly warmed a little—and not from the whiskey alone. Her eyes remained fixed on him as he tilted his head back to drink, exposing the long, tanned column of his neck. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as the drink slid down his throat, and still, she stared. Lu had never paid so much attention to a man’s neck before, but couldn’t pull her eyes off of this one.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She was about to receive life-changing news and she was thinking about male body parts.

Her face grew hot, for as soon as she thought “body parts,” her eyes skimmed down to his torso, covered in a crisp white shirt and red tie, which ended right above the belt holding up the navy pleated twill trousers that seemed custom made to fit his body.

Metal scraped against metal, and she imagined the trousers sliding down his hips…

“Here. Miss—Here you go.”

The tap on her arm brought her back to the present, as the object of her fantasy stood before her, flask in hand.

Where anyone walking by might see.

She snatched it from his hands. “I—I’ve got to go.”

His mouth opened slightly as his eyebrows shot up. “Alright then. Thanks for the drink, Miss…”

“Lu,” she called over her shoulder as she ran up the building steps. “Just Lu.”

“I hope to see you again soon, Lu.” His words trailed off as the heavy doors of the administration building closed behind her. She wanted to see him again, too. A whole lot more of him.

But that kind of thing got her in trouble back home in Holton, a small town outside Memphis. She’d been bored and had read too much Shakespeare, Lawrence, and Flaubert and wanted the passion and excitement. While like any teen girl in the 1940s, she hoped to be in love. But a raging war and an insatiable curiosity led her to the dance halls where she’d sent more than one soldier off with a special farewell, all by the time she was sixteen years old. And it was fun until it was not—when she found herself pregnant and facing her parents with the news before she started to show.

She stumbled up the stairs in the impractical, but newly fashionable, stiletto heels she’d donned for her meeting. The memories of her troubled pregnancy, without her mama to comfort her, gave her pause. She’d wiled away the hours at the home for unwed mothers, but because of pain and maybe sadness, she’d spent more time in bed than out. She’d managed to earn her high school equivalency before the baby came. At the first stirrings of labor, she was taken to the hospital and put out. She remembered nothing about the birth, never held her baby. Lu hadn’t ever considered having children before she had one, and even after doing so, still did not want to be a mother. Maybe even more so because of her experience.

After her recovery, she applied to college.

The very same college whose halls she stood within at this very moment.

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