Not. Your. Problem, the niggling voice inside reminded him.
Not so. It was his problem, and he knew it. His mother had raised him to be considerate, to put others first. But when he looked in the mirror, the image he saw was his father, Carlos Elizondo. Hard-hearted, heavy-handed, and crazy competitive, his father’s legacy seemed to take hold more fiercely every day.
But in his mother’s life, in her work? Kindness mattered. And he could do no less.
By the time he climbed into bed and closed his eyes, he was able to switch off some of his wandering thoughts, but two images remained. The sight of Tara Simonetti doing a slow, full-circle spin in his mother’s store as if she’d just grabbed the gold ring on the carousel . . .
And the sweet rush of awareness that woke him out of a months-long funk when his hand gripped hers.
He fell asleep remembering the warmth of her hand and the true sympathy in her eyes, and for the first time since last summer, he slept soundly.
She hadn’t wanted to let go last night.
The grip of Greg’s fingers, the touch of his hand, the strength in his gaze, had made her long to linger. She wanted to step forward. Meet his smile. Grip his hand a little tighter, longer.
So, of course, she stepped back.
Tara frowned into the mirror, remembering Greg’s face, his profile, his shoulders, his . . .
Everything.
The shirt and tie. The casual sport coat that said custom designers and good taste mixed well. The black trench so typical of professional men in big cities, uniform to the max.
She saw beyond the tough negotiator and read the sorrow in his eyes. His lingering sadness melted her.
But she’d been raised in the fallout of a ladder-climbing lawyer. Her family had suffered for nearly two decades because of one man’s greed. The moral of that story was that she would always tread carefully, even though she longed to stare into Greg Elizondo’s big brown eyes for oh, say, forever?
She couldn’t risk it.
She’d be kind, friendly, and compassionate because the guy had been through a grievous loss, but that’s where she’d draw the line. Greg’s professional record and competitive nature put him in the “Danger Zone” category. She glanced at the clock and hurried out the door to catch the midmorning service in the two-towered church around the corner.
With God comes joy.
Bells chimed happiness around the City of Brotherly Love every Sunday morning, their call a reminder of what built this great nation: the longing for religious freedom.
She slipped into the church, loving the brass-trimmed old lighting, the ornate wooden panels, and the carved balustrade wrapping the choir loft.
A blue-robed woman waved from above. Her friend Truly Dixon.
Tara waved back as the gospel group began a harmonized hum before breaking into the opening song of praise.
Tara left the church an hour later feeling energized, ready to walk the one-point-five miles to the bridal store.
Ice-cold, wind-driven rain changed her mind. She waited in the covered entry of the church for a bus, dashed across the road when she saw it approaching, and took a full-on splash from a careless driver heading in the opposite direction.
A few minutes later Tara arrived at the store—nearly an hour before she was scheduled to meet Greg. She sighed, scanning her options. The full-frontal drenching had put a damper on her church-inspired hope.
A nearby coffee shop smelled marvelous and looked warm.
She succumbed to the temptation, grabbed a plain coffee, and doctored it up with mocha powder, cream, and a dash of vanilla. It wasn’t fancy, but it was tasty and cheap, and these days, that was her rule of thumb.
The church bells woke Greg, as they always did on Sunday morning. Bright, vibrant, ringing in the new day with a gusto that should be reserved for classic movies.
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
One of Maria Elena’s favorite verses nudged him. She’d have been there this morning, singing. Praising. Praying.
And he’d have rolled his eyes, turned over, and gone back to sleep. But the bell’s tolling seemed even more enthusiastic than usual.
Rain drummed overhead.
Sleet beat against his back window.
Clearly the bell’s excitement wasn’t weather related.
Tara.
He jumped up, scanned the clock, and panicked. Those were the noon service bells, not the early ones. He’d promised to meet Tara at noon, and apparently he had slept through the first bells and was already late. He threw on some clothes, grabbed his coat, and jogged toward the shopping district.
The miserable weather magnified his guilt as he passed the mission and hooked a left. She was trying to do him a good turn, learn the business he was in danger of losing, and now he’d kept her waiting. Talk about a first-class jerk.