Stepping Up To Love (Lakeside Porches 1) by Katie O'Boyle Read Free Book Online

come to the attention of the media?
    Joel wished he could float away on the moon. “I do. Scandal has its own way of crippling a college. So my bottom-line question to you: Is there a way to protect those who are not involved, those who are doing a good job for the students and for the college?”
    “That’s why we have Unemployment.”
    “Be serious.”
    “I will give it more thought, but that may be my best answer. And I want your assurance that you will use your head where the young woman is concerned. Until she graduates and until the investigation is finished, you have no business getting involved with her.”
    Joel opened his hand and pressed it against the cool glass.
    “I know you, Joel. I hear a tone in your voice when you’re speaking about her that I have never heard you use. The kind of thing they write poetry about. I need you to use your brain, Joel, the one in your head.”
    Joel sighed deeply. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I wish you were here, wish you were closer and more accessible.”
    “I know you need a sounding board, and I know your network is mostly made up of people like me who think in dollar signs, not in terms of people’s needs and the importance of the community.”
    “It’s unbelievably valuable to me to have your input and your insight.”
    “You’re handling it well, Joel. Personally I wish you didn’t have to deal with the college at all. Part of me wishes you’d resign tomorrow and put your energy into the charitable foundation that I’ve been neglecting right along with you for a decade. Resign the board and let the chips fall where they may. I never liked that place. And I know it’s harder for you because you have a conscience.”
    “Don’t kid yourself, so do you have a conscience.”
    Justin laughed weakly. “Maybe that’s what I’m running from.”
    “Where are you anyway?”
    “London, leaving in a few hours for Indonesia.”
    “Oil?”
    “Oil and other minerals.”
    “I need you to be safe. And get an email address, will you? They’re free.”
    “Checking in as requested,” Manda stood uneasily at Joel’s office door the next morning. He turned to her, and his eyes lit up. She was glad she’d decided to wear the spa-castoff linen trousers again, paired with a pale gray turtleneck that looked decent tucked in. She stood tall and hoped she wasn’t shaking.
    “Good, I was getting hungry.” Joel pressed the intercom, mumbled something into it and ushered her to a small table by the window.
    Manda looked out at bare trees and a fountain shut off for the winter. Why didn’t he have an office overlooking the lake?
    Joel sat across from her. “Have you had breakfast?”
    She shook her head. “Tony took me for a burger on the way home last evening. I’ll get some groceries this noon so I can fix some meals.”
    “What’s the dorm like?”
    “It’s a campus apartment for four. There’s just one other girl, a junior, and we each have our own room with a bathroom, plus a little kitchen and a living room.”
    He toyed with his pen. “Is she okay?”
    Manda shrugged. “I met her for, like, two minutes; she went off to ‘study’; and I was asleep when she got back, which I think was early morning.”
    Joel’s nod confirmed he knew more about the situation than she did.
    She let it go. “Thank you for giving me a place to lay my weary head for the next eight weeks, but…”
    “But what?”
    “It’s going to be a while before I can pay anyone back for it.”
    Joel gave her his “hawk” look, and she went rigid in her chair, at a loss to know what she’d said wrong.
    He broke eye contact, toyed with his pen again, and set it down. “That’s not necessary.”
    “Can we talk about this?”
    Joel avoided her eyes.
    “Joel—Mr. Cushman—”
    “Joel.”
    “Joel, this is hard to say. When I lived at the Kristof's, I was dependent on them for a place to stay.”
    He was looking at her again with those smoky gray-green eyes that