Page 25 of Echoes of a Silent Song
Dreamy light eyes.
A sleeveless, high-necked blouse and delicate necklace.
She appeared to be looking past the camera, almost as though seeing a faraway future.
A future that had been denied.
The office door creaked open, and Callum gave his usual grunt of greeting as he moved past her toward the minifridge and rooted around inside.Then the microwave door opened and shut, followed by three beeps and its annoyingly loud whir.
Okay, the fridge was community property.Vic had brought it in years ago after his daughter moved from dorm to apartment.But the microwave washers.And Callum had probably been using it the whole time, that fink.
Irritation rising, she turned to snipe at him, but the words died in her throat when she saw him.He sat at his desk, hunched over his iPad.His left hand plunged deep into his mass of coffee-colored hair while his right traced a beat pattern.Was that ...Yes.That tricky passage of “Dies Irae,” the one with the random bars of five-four, where the sopranos always came in late.He beat a few bars, then stopped.Did it again.And again.Changed a gesture and cued his imaginary soprano section with a bit more crispness.He broke off.Shook his head.Practiced the pattern again.
Hmm.For all his blustery arrogance, he certainly seemed to care about the precision and clarity of his conducting gestures.
Quite a lot, if the bags beneath his eyes were any indication.He must still not be sleeping well.And the slump of his shoulders ...He looked like he bore the weight of the world on those shoulders.He’d shed his tweed coat, and his light-blue dress shirt highlighted his broad, muscled shoulders.The sweep of strength in his upper back.
The microwave beeped, a necessary jolt from a most unwelcome—though annoyingly not unpleasant—reverie.Had she truly been admiring Callum’s back?His shoulders?She shuddered.Thank God Joy wasn’t anywhere nearby.She’d never let Blair hear the end of it.
Another series of beeps from the microwave set her teeth on edge, but Callum made no move to retrieve his lunch.He was still hunched over his screen.Still conducting an imaginary choir.
When the microwave beeped yet again, Blair rose, opened the door, and slid the plastic tray from the warm interior.Some sort of single-guy microwave pasta dish, no doubt chock-full of sodium and chemicals and smothered in something that may have, at one time, been actual tomatoes.She shut the door and placed the tray of pasta on Callum’s desk, near his left elbow.
He glanced up, the expression in his forest-green eyes a mixture of surprise and gratitude, along with a tiny bit of embarrassment.
“Sorry.”He slid his iPad to the side and replaced it with the tray of pasta.“I must’ve zoned out for a bit.Apologies if I hogged the microwave.”
Sitting back down at her desk, she gestured toward her salad.“No need.But I appreciate it all the same.”
She reached for the yearbook again.
Callum’s chair gave a squeak.“Last year’s yearbook has you sucked in too, I take it?”
“What?”Oh.Right.Yearbooks had been distributed yesterday morning, and getting the kids to focus on anything but those had been an uphill battle.“No, this one’s from 1970.Iris Wallingford’s senior year.”
“I see.”Pasta in hand, he rolled his chair closer.“Anything good?”
“Well ...”Rolling her own chair, she met him halfway and showed him the picture at the front of the yearbook.“Callum, meet Iris.”
He took the book from her, and a subtle whiff of cologne cut through the fake-marinara smell.A not-unpleasant whiff either.
In fact, it was ...quitepleasant.
Ugh.
Callum’s hair fell across his forehead as he studied the picture, and suddenly she couldn’t look away.Cheekbones shadowed by the office’s soft lamplight.A defined jaw shrouded in a hint of dark stubble.And those shoulders ...
Crap.
Joy was right.Callum Knightwashandsome.
What a revolting development.
Callum chuckled, low and in his throat, and Blair startled.Had hecaught her staring?Did he know her thoughts?He probably did, that eel, and now he knew she—
Oh.His eyes were focused on the yearbook.Good.
“That’s Vic?”he said around the baritone melody of his laughter.“My word.I had no idea what he looked like in high school.”
