What Family Means

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The scent of the woman’s perfume made his blood run hot. So much so that he didn’t realize the professor had arrived and started taking attendance.

“Roman?”

“Ici.”

“Russert?”

“Ici.”

“Schaefer?”

“Oui, ici, madame.”

That voice.

“Debra?” he whispered, afraid he’d lost his mind.

The woman with the cloud of red hair turned around in her seat. Her green eyes glittered in the morning light shafting through the Murano glass windowpanes. The same freckles, the same tilt of her nose. But on a much more sophisticated face. Was that glossy lipstick on her naturally pink lips?

She didn’t recognize him for a heartbeat, but then recognition and incredulity lit up her expression.

“Will!” Her voice was huskier, sexier than he’d remembered.

And too loud for Professor Cleremont.

“This is a graduate-level course and very demanding, Mademoiselle Schaefer.”

Debra whirled back around in her chair.

“Oui, Madame Cleremont.” Her French was flawless. Will recalled that she’d taken French in high school, but when had she learned to speak like a native?

He sat behind her for the next hour and forty-five minutes, not hearing a single word of what Professor Cleremont said. His intense and constant awareness of Debra made him feel flushed. Distracted.

So his reaction to their one shared kiss at seventeen—when she was fifteen—hadn’t been a fluke. At least not for him.

The class finally ended and Will absently picked up the handouts as the fifteen students filed out the door. He saw only one.

Debra.

“When did you get here?” Without thought, he placed his hand on her elbow. She stopped and turned to face him. He had her full attention, all right.

“Last week. This is my junior year abroad with Mount Holyoke.”

“Mount Holyoke?”

She looked exasperated.

“Yes, Will. I’m a student. I attend university. I’m studying art history.”

“But Mount Holyoke’s Ivy League.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“There is such a thing as a scholarship, Will.”

“But…you’re still an undergrad—these are graduate courses.”

“Yes, and I’m earning my master’s at the same time as my bachelor’s.” Her face reflected boredom and a flash of…disappointment?

“I never knew—”

“You never bothered to ask, Will.”

Ouch. He hadn’t contacted her after their kiss that winter day so long ago. His mother had forbidden any contact with her, and frankly he didn’t want his mother on Debra’s case, either.

He’d felt the need to protect her, although—or perhaps because—they moved in different circles. The same high school but vastly different social groups. He couldn’t remember Debra ever being at a dance or after-school function. He’d missed her terribly but was more relieved than anything. He didn’t want his friends bothering her.

They’d never spoken again.

“Yeah. I guess we…drifted apart.”

“Call it whatever you want, Will. I have another class in half an hour, across the place.”

With that she stalked away from him and he just stood there, his breath gone. As though she’d punched him in the stomach, hard. But she hadn’t even touched him.

She’d given him that look—of contempt? Disapproval?—with her brilliant eyes. The eyes that used to radiate hero worship for him.

The eyes that glowed softly in the winter moonlight after he’d kissed her, his hands on either side of her face. He hadn’t felt the cold blustering around them.

Just the wonder of childhood companionship that had grown into something deeper.

And was cut off.

Will shivered in the autumn sunshine.

A moment earlier, her eyes had done the same thing to him. She’d cut him off.

September 1972

Paris, France

DEBRA HAD NO IDEA how she did it. She’d walked away from Will after missing him for all these years. His memory had spoiled the chances of every boyfriend since.

She liked boys. A lot, in fact.

But when it came to talking about things that mattered, they were dumb asses compared to Will. How could they be anything else? She and Will had shared a childhood friendship that could never be recaptured with anyone else.