The Love Letter (4 page)

One thing was
not in doubt – Sabrina wasn’t one of his favorite people. Though she made little impression on him the day she almost ran him down outside his classroom, she left him in no doubt of her existence some months later when he discovered her going through the drawers of the desk in his office.

Sabrina
was in the dining room setting out all the delicacies Casey felt necessary to serve for afternoon tea when she heard the unmistakable sound of a new arrival. As she arranged the silver dessert forks in a neat row, she could hear Casey’s attractive voice and the deep tones of another.

Her heart began to pound
heavily. She’d never expected to hear that voice again. Meredith was laughing now, and the sound of it sent a ripple of feeling through her body. Was this really happening?

The voices got louder
, and a sense of panic seized her. What if Casey brought him into the dining room? She couldn’t meet him now, not with her sister as a witness. There was no telling what he might say when he saw her. She must contrive a way to see him alone. With more speed than accuracy, she laid the last few forks on the lace tablecloth and made her escape.

Sea Grape Cottage did
n’t serve dinner which meant most of Sabrina’s evenings were free. This particular night was her turn at the front desk; her plan was to contact Meredith during this time when there was less chance of them being interrupted.

She was still working out exactly what she was going to say when the
beveled glass door opened and in he came. At first glance, he looked younger and thinner. Sabrina supposed his casual dress could account for that. He’d always worn suits for his lectures.

In the dim light, she must have looked like
her sister for his first words were cordial enough. “Good evening, Casey. I wondered if I might get breakfast sent to my room in the morning.”

By
this time, he’d reached the desk behind which Sabrina sat waiting for the proverbial ax to fall. Before she could inform him that it would be their pleasure to bring breakfast to his room, his eyes narrowed and any sign of cordiality vanished.

“
We seem fated to meet with you sitting behind a desk that’s presumably not your own. What are you looking for this time?”

Sabrina’s own veneer of politeness fell away quickly under this direct attack.
“I work here,” she retorted indignantly.

“
Really? And what brought you to Tybee Island? Did Virginia offer too little scope for one with your obvious talents?”

Forgetting for the moment that she needed assistance from the man standing over her, Sabrina allowed her anger full reign.
“I wasn’t stealing exam questions!”

His eyebrows soared above his blue eyes
, but in contrast to her heated reaction, his voice remained calm. “Still sticking to the same story, I see.”

Sabrina took a moment to remember her surroundings and accordingly lowered her voice.
“I’m sticking to the truth. Why would I steal a test for a class I wasn’t in?”

“
Do I really need to answer that?” he asked irritably, what little patience he possessed beginning to wear thin.

“
No, because it’s obvious you’re not going to believe me.”

“With some justification, I would say.”

“Not if you would take a moment to use some of that banked intelligence you undoubtedly possess.”

“Facts are hard to argue.”

Sabrina sighed heavily; she was getting nowhere. “Can we just forget it ever happened?”

A grim smile played around his lips.
“So let me get this straight. You want me to conveniently forget that you entered my office without permission and were actually caught with the evidence in your hands. And furthermore, you want me to conceal this knowledge from your present employer.”

Sabrina
began to look exasperated. “Well, since I can’t convince you what my real purpose was, then yes, I do. If it makes you feel better about it, my sister manages this inn.”

“
And how should that make me feel better?”

Sabrina
came around the desk. Once again she was staring into his face. If anything, it was even more handsome than she remembered. She wished those stunning features didn’t look so forbidding.

“Look, I don
’t care what you think about me, but I don’t want something idiotic I did in the past to cause problems for Casey.”

Meredith
looked at her intently for a few moments in silence. As had happened previously in his office, he was unable to ignore the appeal in her eyes.

Sabrina bore this scrutiny with as much
poise as she could manage. The passage of time hadn’t made him any less intimidating. When he finally spoke, she realized she’d been holding her breath.

“
Your secret is safe – for now. But don’t try my patience too far. By the way, what was so important about this letter you were supposedly trying to retrieve?”

Sabrina
’s cheeks turned scarlet. She didn’t want to talk about the letter. She had long since convinced herself that he never found it. “It was something silly. My roommate mailed it to you as a joke.” She stopped for a moment and then went on in a more subdued tone. “I never found it – the letter, I mean. You came in before I got very far.”

“
Something for which I refuse to apologize. It was, after all, my office you were ransacking.”

“I was
n’t ransacking anything,” she quipped through clenched teeth. “I put everything back exactly where I found it.”

“You were a model thief. If I hadn’t caught you myself, I’d never have known you
were there.”

Sabrina could
n’t decide whether he was being sarcastic or teasing her. “You can laugh about it, but you’ll never understand the state I was in. I was desperate to get that letter.”

“W
hy were you so desperate? You claimed it was your roommate’s letter.”

“I lied,” she
admitted in a small voice.

“Something you appear to do
very well. Goodnight.” He turned abruptly and moved toward the door.

“Professor Copplin?” she started tentatively. She heard his sigh of exasperation.
“What time did you want breakfast?”

“Seven. And
, under the circumstances, isn’t it ridiculous to be so formal? Call me Meredith.”

“
Oh, I could never do that.” At least not to his face – she’d called him Meredith in her mind for a long time.

“I don’t see why not. That’s how you
referred to me in your letter.”

Sabrina
’s horrified gasp was barely audible, but it hardly mattered. Meredith hadn’t waited to see her reaction. Her mind in a whirl, she drifted back to her seat behind the desk. With a few words, the one element of comfort in that unfortunate affair - the knowledge that Meredith had never found the letter – had been swept away leaving her defenseless once more.

How c
ould she face him again knowing that he was intimately familiar with her innermost thoughts? All these weeks and months when she’d thought herself safe, Meredith had known the contents of the letter. Sabrina slowly let her head fall into her hands. She didn’t want this horrible nightmare to start again. Would her suffering over the letter ever end?

It had
never been part of Sabrina’s plan to fall in love with Professor Copplin, especially after she’d more or less laughed at all the others who’d done the same thing. But after that collision outside his classroom, her heart had taken over her common sense. For obvious reasons, she never told anyone this embarrassing secret.

She knew there was no chance of him ever feeling the same way about her.
The deck was stacked against her in so many ways. He was an educated professional man, she a lowly student. He was incredibly good-looking, and she was nothing but average. The list could go on and on.

Sabrina
was content to admire him from a distance and receive his quick, impersonal smile whenever they happened to meet. It was a harmless passion that hurt no one; a one-sided love affair that she expected would die for lack of encouragement.

Unfortunately, this
wasn’t how things played out. Time didn’t lessen the intensity of her feelings; it only made them stronger. Sabrina soon learned the contrary nature of love and how tenaciously it will hang on despite overwhelming odds and no hope of success.

In an effort to gain some sort of closure
to a situation that was unlikely to end as she desired, Sabrina wrote a letter in which she faithfully recorded the words of love that could never be spoken. There was relief in expressing the tumultuous emotions filling her heart and mind. There was also a measure of security because the man who’d inspired such devotion would never see one word. Once the letter was complete, it required a special place. Sabrina tucked the folded letter inside a childhood journal where it should have been safe from prying eyes.

Even now,
a year later, she could vividly recall the feeling of despair that had washed over her when Sheila laughingly confessed her delivery of the love letter. The embarrassment of having Professor Copplin know how she felt had almost outweighed the repercussions to Sabrina should he choose to make the letter public.

Colleges tend
to frown on any student bold enough to declare their feelings for a faculty member in such familiar terms. Her dismissal hadn’t been outside the realm of possibility. Such an action was unthinkable.

Sabrina
couldn’t take such a risk. Instead, she devised a plan to retrieve the letter – something in her saner moments she would have been the first to admit was not the smartest thing to do. But these weren’t her sane moments; she was beside herself with fear and mortification.

Sitting
now in the quiet inn, Sabrina had no trouble recalling every detail of that harrowing afternoon: the long walk from her apartment to the building where Meredith’s office was located, the anxious wait for his secretary to leave for lunch, and then her cautious entry into his private domain. Everything had been going so well to that point.

There
had been just one problem in her calculations. A lightning storm the previous evening had knocked out power in one of the classroom buildings. In consequence, his lecture had been rescheduled, and thus Meredith wasn’t almost a mile across campus when Sabrina started searching his desk. He was just down the hall having a lively discussion with a colleague.

When
their conversation ended, he naturally made his way back to his office. And just at the moment when Sabrina gave way to curiosity and sat down to look at the final exam for an English class she’d already taken, he walked through the door.

Exactly
as he’d walked in on her tonight. And like before, she was forced into a position where she had to hope for his silence. How many more times was this going to happen? Was she always to be at a disadvantage with this man?

It wasn’t hard to imagine what
Meredith thought of her in light of the contents of the letter and her admittedly stupid decision to get it back. Her own actions had earned her the contempt of the man she loved. All she could do now was rely on her own behavior to convince him that if nothing else, she wasn’t that immature girl of a year ago.

At
this point, her gloomy thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of Casey. A quick glance at her sister’s glowing face was enough to bring a reluctant grin to her own. “Had a nice time?”

Casey
nodded slowly as she approached the desk. “I think I’m in love.”

A chuckle escaped
Sabrina. “After two dates? That’s quick even for you.”

“I know, but I mean it this time. He’s the most wonderful man I’ve ever met.”

Sabrina stood and stretched her cramped legs. “That’s what you said last time. Anyway, I’m glad you’re in love, because you’re more fun to be around when you’re in and not out of that blessed state. By the way, our resident writer dropped by to request breakfast in his room at seven.”

“That sounds like a job for you.
He’s even better looking than David.”

Sabrina
grimaced as she made her way around the desk, patting her sister on the shoulder as she moved toward the staircase. “You don’t give up, do you? He came for solitude, remember, and I mean to see that he gets it.”

Casey
stared after her thoughtfully. “I get the feeling you don’t like Meredith Copplin.”

Not feeling up
to the task of explaining that it was the other way around, Sabrina pretended a yawn. “I’m going to bed; it’s been a long day.”

Her room was still in darkness when the alarm clock broke rudely into her slumber. Impatiently pushing aside the coverlet, Sabrina slipped out of bed and over to the window. Grey clouds driven by angry winds raced across the horizon. With a slight shrug, she drifted into the bathroom. Bad weather wasn’t going to stop her from taking her morning walk.