Desperate ones like Mama who’d surrender their hearts if he’d ease a bit of their pain.
“So, Sunday,” she said, shaking off a strange jealous wave. “You ready?”
“I think so. I’ve got my sermon in my head. Just need to write out my notes.” The beam of his smile went to the bottom of her being and she trapped it there, not willing to let it go. She could create a trio of Tom Wells Jr. treasures—his touch, his voice, his smile.
She would never be with him, but she could remember the one man in her life who made her feel what it was like to be a woman.
“And just what do you hope people will encounter at Encounter Church?” She filled her roller brush in the paint tray, then pressed it against the wall, working around the blue tape protecting the trim and window frame.
“God, His emotions toward us. I hope they find love and friendship with each other.” He laughed low. “Maybe a good potluck dinner now and then.”
“God has emotions?”
“Absolutely. Love, peace, joy. God is love, First John tells us.” He gazed down at her. “Love’s an emotion, right? God created us with emotions. Why wouldn’t He have them Himself?”
“Because emotions can be manipulated. Go bad . . .”
“Ah yes, if you’re a human. But God has perfect emotions. Don’t you think it’s kind of cool God feels love or delight in you?”
“Me?” Ha, ha, now he talked crazy.
“Yes, you.” Tom came down the ladder and toward her. “He loves you. He also likes you.”
“You don’t know any such thing.” His gaze, the intensity of his words, set her heart on fire. “I prayed once. It didn’t go well.”
“Wimp.”
“Excuse me?”
“You prayed once and gave up? Is that how you became the stylist to the stars? By giving up the first time ‘it didn’t go well’?” He took the roller from her hand and rested it against the paint tray. Then he moved over to his iPhone and started the song again. “Follow me.” He led her to the center of the shop and took her in his arms, resting his hand against the small of her back.
As the music played, he turned her in a slow, swaying circle, singing softly in her ear.
. . . you’re beautiful.
For a moment, she was enraptured, completely caught up in the swirl of being in his arms and the velvet texture of his voice slipping through her. But only for a moment.
“Tom, stop fooling around.” She pushed away from his warmth and into the cold space of the shop. “Don’t be singing about how I’m beautiful.”
“But you are.”
“Don’t you understand?” She gritted her teeth and tightened her hands into fists about her ears. She jerked off her scarf and gathered her hair on top of her head, exposing the botched skin graft. “Beautiful, huh?”
“Yes.” He stepped toward her, hand outstretched.
But she backed away. “And this?” She turned her back to him, raised the lower hem of her top, and exposed the crimped, rough skin of her back and right side. “It’s disgusting. And not desirable. So don’t come up in here singing, ‘you’re beautiful’ when it’s not true.”
“Who told you it’s not true?”
“Me. My bathroom mirror. The men Mama dated when I was a teenager. ‘Too bad about all those scars, Shana, she might have been a real looker.’ ”
“Most people don’t see your scars. You cover them up. Just because a few foolish, lustful men projected their idea of beauty on you, you accept it? Ever think those scars protected you? Kept you from predators?”
“Also from nice men like you who might have been my high school boyfriend or taken me to the prom.”
“I like your scars.”
She reached down for her roller. “Now you’re just being mean.”
“I like that they’ve made you a fighter. I like your face, your eyes, your smile, your heart. I love your ability to see beauty in others and bring it out for the rest of us to see. Those are the things that make you beautiful and extraordinary.”
Eyes flooding, she rolled paint onto the wall, her back to Tom. “You’d better get back to work or we’ll be here all night.”
“But first . . .” He rested his hand against her shoulder and turned her to him. “Tell me you’re beautiful.”
She refused, eyes averted, unable to contain her tears. In her ears, her pulse roared.
“Ginger.” He touched her chin, turned her attention to him. “Say it. It’s the first road to healing. You are beautiful.”
“I’m not your project, Tom.”
“Agreed. But you are my friend. And I hate to see my friends believe lies about themselves.”
“I believe what’s true.”
“Then say it. ‘I’m beautiful.’ ”
She dropped her roller brush and crossed the room. “You’re infuriating. Why do you care? I’m the daughter of the woman who helped ruin your father’s ministry. I asked her about it, by the way, and she confessed. She loved your father but nothing happened between them.”