Learning to Fall Read online

  LEARNING

  TO FALL

  Jillian Eaton

  Learning to Fall is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events

  portrayed in this novel are either products

  of the author’s imagination

  or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © by Jillian Eaton 2015

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  All Rights Reserved.

  Except for use in any review, the

  reproduction or utilization of this work in whole

  or in part in any form is strictly forbidden.

  OTHER TITLES BY JILLIAN EATON

  Historical Romance

  The Christmas Widow

  The Risqué Resolution

  The Winter Wish

  London Ladies

  The Runaway Duchess

  The Spinster and the Duke

  The Forgotten Fiancee

  Rookery Rakes

  The Duke of St. Giles

  A Dark Affair on Dower Street

  Wedded Women Quartet

  A Brooding Beauty

  A Ravishing Redhead

  A Lascivious Lady

  A Gentle Grace)

  Young Adult

  A Night Without Stars

  PROLOGUE

  The first time I saw Daniel Logan, the world stopped spinning.

  Trust me, I know how cliche that sounds. I’m an English professor. If a student handed me a paper that began with ‘the first time I saw Daniel Logan, the world stopped spinning’ I would have used my red pen to quickly disabuse them of the notion that beginning anything with a cliche is a good idea. Then again, I suppose in this case it’s rather fitting since everything about Daniel was a bad idea from the start.

  I should have walked away. I knew it was wrong. I knew the consequences. I knew what would happen if we were caught.

  To him.

  To me.

  But I didn’t care.

  For once in my life, I didn’t think or plan. I didn’t cross my t’s or dot my i’s. I lived in the moment, and even when that moment caught fire and began to burn with the flames of anger and accusation I didn’t regret my actions.

  They keep asking me that. If I regret what I did. I know I should, but how can I when all the wrongs I committed led to Daniel? Given the choice, I would do it all again, and that’s not regret… that’s sheer stupidity. Because no matter how many beginnings this story has, it was only ever meant to have one ending.

  And it’s not happily-ever-after.

  CHAPTER ONE

  September

  I shouldn’t have been so nervous. Standing behind the desk - my desk - I pretended to shuffle papers while covertly watching the steady trickle of students make their way into my classroom. A few were talking loudly, their voices raised with the excitement that came with the first day of classes. The rest were on their cell phones, frantically typing away, their faces scrunched in concentration.

  They slowly took their seats, pulled out a binder or a notebook, and one by one lifted their heads to stare straight at me. I knew they were silently assessing. Judging. Trying to figure out if I was a pushover or someone they would grudgingly respect. Just as I knew the next five minutes would decide the tone for the rest of the year.

  My right hand trembled ever-so-slightly as I crossed to the whiteboard. Clenching my fingers into a tight fist, I turned away from my students and counted to three.

  You can do this.

  You can do this.

  You can do this.

  “Good morning and welcome to English Literature,” I began, a smile firmly in place even before I planted my heels into the commercial grade brown carpet and pivoted to face my class of thirty-seven students.

  My hands were steady now. My nerves calm. Everything I’d done over the past ten years, everything I’d sacrificed, everything I’d accomplished, had finally led to this one moment.

  I wasn’t about to let a little anxiety ruin everything.

  “I am Professor Finley. This is my first year teaching-”

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Why did I say that? Why? I might as well have put a stamp in the middle of my forehead that said I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. Feel free to walk all over me.

  “-and I am very excited for the opportunity to be here today.”

  Excited for the opportunity? What did that even mean? I was talking gibberish. I was an English professor with a master’s degree from Harvard and I was talking gibberish.

  Oh God.

  “Nice to meet ya Professor!” A boy, his thick neck and impossibly broad shoulders identifying him as a member of the football team, gave a cheerful wave. He had the facial hair of a thirty-year-old biker and the dimwitted gaze of a teenager.

  “Nice legs,” one of his buddies snickered. Another football player. A quick scan of the forty desks I’d spent over an hour arranging into eight perfectly straight lines of five revealed nearly half of them were filled with men who looked like they ate steroids for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

  Wonderful.

  I bit the inside of my cheek, swallowing back another uncharacteristic curse. I’d never been one for swearing, but if there was ever a time for a few shits and damnits this was certainly it. Stonewall may have been a private college quietly renowned for its liberal arts program, but that didn’t mean it was immune to the benefits of admitting students based solely on their athletic ability.

  I hadn’t liked football players when I was a student and I didn’t like them any more now that I was a teacher. Short on brains and big on brawn, they were rude, obnoxious, and-

  “Did you check out the ass on her?”

  Chauvinistic.

  “Who said that?” I asked quietly, narrowed gaze scanning for the culprit. My five minutes were quickly ticking away. If I didn’t regain control soon, I would find myself facing an uphill battle for the rest of the semester. Without respect, I couldn’t exert authority. Without authority, I wouldn’t have control. Students would feel free to skip class. Come in late. Leave early. I knew it shouldn’t have mattered. This wasn’t middle school. I wasn’t their babysitter. I wasn’t even required to take attendance. Chances were I would never learn much more about the wide range of students sitting before me than their names and their writing style. If they failed it would be on their shoulders. But as I studied their faces, some of them eager, some of them sleepy, some of them excited, some of them bored, I knew any failure on their part would be a failure on mine.

  For myself to succeed, they would need to succeed.

  Every last one of them.

  Even the football players.

  “Sexist comments are not only unwarranted under every imaginable circumstance, they display a notable lack of intelligence. Given that your being here today means you have managed to graduate high school, I expect better of you.” I inserted a deliberate pause, giving time for what I had said to sink in and be absorbed.

  I had always been careful with my words. Particularly in the classroom. I understood the weight they carried. The importance. The value. As a young child with a propensity for shyness that went far above and beyond the norm, I learned at an early age how to get my point across using the least amount of words possible. Why write a page when you could write a paragraph?

  To my relief, I saw my short lecture had the desired effect on at least one of the football players when the student who had complimented my legs sat up a bit straighter and pulled a pen out from behind his right ear. For an instant our gazes met and his shoulders shrugged in a silent apology I was more than happy to accept.

  “Let’s begin by reviewing the syllabus.” Even though I had it memorized by heart, I went to my desk and picked up the
neatly typed five page syllabus I’d spent all summer painstakingly creating. Flipping to the second page - the first held my contact information and office hours - I motioned for the class to do the same. The room filled with the sound of papers being shuffled and binders being opened. “This course will be as much about history as it is about English literature. We’ll begin with Shakespeare in the sixteenth century and end with JK Rowling in present day.”

  “JK Rowling?” A heavyset girl with choppy black hair and a nose piercing waved her hand in the air. “You mean Harry Potter?”

  “I mean the author who wrote Harry Potter.”

  “Awesome,” the girl breathed.

  It was awesome. Biting back a grin, I cleared my throat before moving on. I knew including a children’s author with the likes of Shakespeare and Austen was a bit unconventional, but Rowling’s effect on modern day literature was irrefutable. At least that’s what I told John Hainsworth, the head of the English department, when I’d been trying to get my syllabus approved.

  The truth was I wanted my students to be invested in their own education. Too often the focus was placed on graduation, and while the point of college was to attain a degree, what was the point in spending tens of thousands of dollars if at the end of four years all you had to show for your hard work and dedication was a piece of paper?

  Knowledge.

  That was the point of higher education. That was the goal. That was the focus.

  I wanted my students to be interested in what they were learning. I wanted them to come away with more than what they’d started with. I wanted them to be engaged in every single class.

  And what was more engaging than Harry Potter?

  “There will be a midterm and a final,” I continued, flourishing the syllabus in the air, “in addition to five take home assignments and a fifteen page essay on the author you believe has had the most influence on our present day culture.”

  “Fifteen pages? That’s like a book!” This from the football player who’d spoken up earlier. The one who had checked out my ass.

  I’d never known how to deal with guys like him when I was a student. Most of the time I’d been beneath their notice and they’d simply ignored me, but on the rare occasions they actually noticed my existence I’d always reacted to their boisterous, often chauvinistic comments like a deer in headlights: eyes wide, heart pounding, mouth frozen shut. Now, more out of habit than anything else, I almost responded the same exact way.

  Almost.

  “You’re right.” My smile faded as his blossomed into an arrogant grin. I waited until he was finished high-fiving one of his buddies before I said, “Best make it twenty.”

  The girl - the one with the nose piercing - twisted around in her seat and glared up at the football player. “Shut your mouth, Calvin. You’re being an idiot.”

  I couldn’t have summed it up better myself.

  “Are there any other questions or concerns about the syllabus?” In unison the class shook their heads and I returned to the whiteboard. This time my hand was perfectly steady as I carefully selected a blue marker. The felt tip hovered over the glossy surface, ready to be used. Ready to mark a brand new chapter in my brand new life. Taking a deep breath, I pressed the marker down with determination. “Now, who can tell me what year Shakespeare was born?”

  * * * *

  “You look like you could use a drink.”

  Adjusting the stack of books I was carrying out to my trusty little red Subaru Forester, I lifted my head and grinned at the brunette who’d fallen in step beside me.

  Whitney Garrison and I had met in college. Short, curvy, stylish, and outspoken, she was my opposite in every way. Despite our differences we’d quickly become best friends and roommates, but our relationship became long distance when I went on to grad school and she moved back home to save money while searching for a job.

  We had stayed in touch, even managing to get together for a few long weekends, and when I learned my application to Stonewall had been accepted she was the first person I called. It had been her idea to move up to Maine from her parent’s house in Florida, a decision she’d called a “no brainer”.

  Fast forward six months and we were now officially roommates again, living in a two bedroom single home on a quiet, tree-lined street (one of my requirements) within walking distance of all the downtown bars our little college town had to offer (her only requirement).

  “A glass of wine would be nice,” I agreed as I fumbled through my purse for my keys. Finding them, I pressed the unlock button and the Subaru (more commonly known as ‘Roo’) greeted me with a cheerful beep. “But first I need to review my class notes and make a few changes to the syllabus and start on the mid-”

  “Stop.” Whitney held up her hand. “I know you were not about to say midterm.”

  My brow creased. “Well actually-”

  “Because today was the first day of classes. Which means midterms are not for another three months.”

  “I know that.” Skirting around Roo’s trunk, I began to carefully stack my books by category into the plastic crates I kept in the back seat. Whitney hovered over me, her disapproving frown drilling into the back of my head. “But it’s important to be prepared.”

  “Trust me, you’re prepared. You’re always prepared.”

  I turned around in time to see Whitney roll her eyes.

  “You know how important this is to me.” My arms began a defensive creep up to my chest before I pinned them to my sides, thumbs slipping through the belt loops of my gray trousers. Brand new chapter, I reminded myself sternly. Brand new life. “I want to make a good impression.”

  Whitney swept a hand through her long hair, leaving it artlessly tousled in a way that would have taken me two hours, a blow dryer, and a curling iron to duplicate. “It’s time to celebrate, Mo! You did it. You’re a professor now! Holy shit.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I just said that out loud. Professor Finley. I feel like I should salute you or something.”

  I glanced quickly around the parking lot. Save two faculty members who I didn’t recognize standing next to a gray van it was empty. Everyone had gone home for the day. Well, everyone except for the seven hundred students who lived on campus.

  I shot Whitney a look. “Please don’t.”

  She jabbed me in the ribs with her elbow. “That’s what I love about you, Mo. You’re so spontaneous and fun. Come on. Let’s go to The Pier.” Seeing my expression, she rolled her eyes again and held up a finger, poppy red nail polish flashing in the sun. “One drink. Just one! I’ll even buy it for you.”

  “Are you done teaching?” Using my new status as a professor, I’d pulled some strings to get Whitney an interview for the women’s head soccer coach position. Her charm, background - she’d been good enough to play overseas for a year after college - and enthusiasm had done the rest. I knew she was still searching for a “real” job (her quotes, not mine), but in the interim she was having a blast overseeing two-a-days and prepping her team for their first game which, courtesy of the schedule plastered all over our fridge, I knew was in two weeks against Harper, a neighboring liberal arts college.

  “Yeah. Since classes started today I cut the practice in half so they could leave early and start on their homework. Academia first and all that.”

  Hearing the derision in her tone, I couldn’t help but point out the obvious. “It is why they’re in college. To learn.”

  “No,” she said as she breezed around the hood of Roo and popped open the passenger side door. “It’s why you went to college. For the rest of us normal people it was to drink beer and hook up with hot guys. Come on, Mo. It’s the first day of college all over again! Let’s get crunked.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Pier

  While I was fairly certain a chilled glass of white zinfandel did not meet the requirements of getting ‘crunked’, it was the best I could do.

  As we almost always did, Whitney and I managed to set our opposing views asid
e and find middle ground. After going back and forth in the car, we’d agreed to one bar, two drinks, and three hours. It would be just long enough to sate Whitney’s need for social interaction, and short enough to have me back home and in my office before nine. All things considered (including Whitney’s track record for magically talking me into things I didn’t want to do) it was a near perfect compromise.

  We stopped at the house to drop off the car and change out of our work clothes. Built in the late eighteen hundreds, our cozy two bedroom Cape Cod rental came complete with old hardwood floors, blue shutters, and a leaky roof.

  At twelve hundred a month (utilities not included) it definitely strained our shoestring budget, but compared to the other houses in the neighborhood - most of them bigger, all of them in better condition - it was nothing short of a bargain. Camden may have been a tiny coastal village, but it definitely wasn’t a poor one. Originally a factory town that had been world renowned for producing massive schooners, its natural beauty and accessibility to the ocean eventually began to attract the wealthy and privileged who built enormous summer homes overlooking the harbor. Businesses soon followed, and Camden was now a hodgepodge of old money and new where five star restaurants and pricey art galleries rubbed shoulders with lobster shacks and t-shirt stores.

  In the summer the village doubled in size as tourists poured in from every state, only to depart like clockwork at the end of August. In a few weeks the peepers (a second, smaller wave of outsiders drawn by the indisputable beauty of a New England autumn) would arrive, but until then it was only locals and college students. Having been raised just outside a similar tourist town, I liked the quiet and the solitude that came at the end of a bustling season. It felt like the first kiss of cool fall air after a hot, muggy summer.