Page 41 of Echoes of a Silent Song

I’d never felt more alive.

Before long the whole page was filled with notes.With the outpourings of my heart.With the feeling of belonging.Of being wanted.Of being loved.Of loving.

When I looked up, he was watching me.A smile played on his lips.I returned it briefly, filling my tank of inspiration, then dove back into my work.

I am my beloved’s.

And my beloved is mine.

Half a chocolate-frosted doughnut lingered in the box in Peggy Sue’s foyer.Callum peeled off his work gloves and glanced around, but the students were nowhere to be found.Blair had probably eaten the first half.It had certainly been cut neatly enough, and exactly down the middle.And she definitely seemed the sort of person who’d only allow half a doughnut’s worth of indulgence rather than just eating the whole thing.

His growling stomach prevented any further consideration of the matter, and he popped the half doughnut into his mouth all in one bite.He’d woken up late this morning and had skipped breakfast, but three hours of repairing fences and raking leaves had made him regret that decision.

“So she was working on music that day” came a voice from the living room.“You’re sure.”

“Sure as shootin’,” came the reply.

Callum rounded the corner to find Blair rolling green paint ontothe far wall.Peggy Sue sat on a folding chair in the center of the tarp-covered floor.

“And they were kissing?”Blair asked.

“They sure were.”Peggy Sue’s voice held a laugh.“A second or two longer and I’d have had to break it up.”

Callum froze.“Who was kissing?”

Blair turned at the sound, and he froze for an entirely different reason.Her normally pale cheeks were flushed, her red hair was tied up in a messy bun, and she’d traded her usual work wear for a Fighting Illini T-shirt and a pair of worn jeans.Distressed?Was that the term?In any event, they were still in one piece.Just a few little holes where pale skin could peek through.

“Callum.”Her voice jerked him back to the matter at hand.“Iris and Vic.It was Iris and Vic.Mrs.Weldon was the librarian back then, and she saw the two of them kissing.”

“Kissing.”It was important information.Earth-shattering, perhaps.But Blair had a smudge of green paint just beneath her lower lip, and for some reason it made her even more adorable.

Adorable?Had he just thought of the ice queen as adorable?

Well, her lips were, at any rate.They were pink and plump, devoid of their usual lipstick, and ...

...and he was staring at his coworker’s lips, and the last words either of them had spoken involved kissing.

He really should stop staring at her.

“Yes.”Her lips moved, the word bursting from them.“Why would Vic say he didn’t know her?”

“He said what?”Peggy Sue sounded startled.“Oh, he knew her, all right.I think he—”

Whatever she might have been about to say was cut off by the sound of frantic barking, the kind that nearly always belonged to a small, excitable dog.Sure enough, a little white purse poodle, barely large enough to even qualify as a dog, careened around the corner, scrabbling on hardwood and nearly falling on the tarp.

Peggy Sue bent down.“Oh, what’s the matter, Gigi?”

Of course its name was Gigi.

“Do you need to go out?”Peggy Sue hoisted herself from the chair and started for the hallway.“Okay, come on.This way.Don’t want to get paint on your paws.Come on, Gigi.Out.”She and the comically tiny dog disappeared around the corner.

Blair’s frown deepened.“Okay, something’s not adding up.Vic told you he barely knew her, but the yearbook photographer caught them together, and Peggy Sue just said they werekissing.”

There was that word again, and there were her lips again.

“But why would he lie?”she asked.

“I ...I don’t know.”Stop staring at her lips.Stopit.