Until I Met You

by Tari Faris

  “I was expecting your uncle.” She hugged the briefcase a little closer to her body. “When did you get back from Europe?”

  “A couple months ago. I finished my contract and didn’t re-sign. Abby needs me to be here.” He walked around his desk and motioned her to one of the open chairs. “How long are you back for?”

  “Depends.” She slid into the chair opposite his desk and laid the briefcase on her legs. Bringing a practically empty briefcase suddenly seemed ridiculous. Everything seemed ridiculous. The tight bun. The pencil skirt with white blouse. The four-inch heels that had now made her toes go numb. He knew this wasn’t her. And after their conversation in the car, he’d see right through any attempt to fake it.

  “Let me guess, you’re here because you want to reopen the WIFI?” He leaned over a legal pad and clicked a pen a few times.

  “You got me.” Leah released a nervous laugh and tucked that stupid piece of hair behind her ear again.

  “I assume you came up with a killer plan I can’t turn down.” He held out his hand as if waiting for her to pass over a business plan.

  When she didn’t move, he leaned back in the chair and laced his fingers across his stomach. “You still don’t have a plan?”

  “The WIFI was a central piece of this community, and I believe . . .” It didn’t work to come in with a speech that he’d already heard and laughed at.

  Jon steepled his hands on the desk in front of him. “Leah, I want to help you. I do. But unless you have a plan . . .”

  She had given thought to her plan—how she could incorporate her homemade wares into the WIFI and supplement the business profits with Etsy sales. She had one dress in her briefcase she’d planned to show. It was the sample of her new pattern, and she’d already received four orders based on the pictures she’d posted yesterday. But that was when she thought she was meeting with Dale. Not Jon, who had teased her about her homemade pieces for years. She couldn’t count on him to see the value of selling them.

  “Just show me what you have.” He motioned to her briefcase. When she didn’t move, he raised his eyebrow again. “Did you bring an empty briefcase?”

  “No. It’s just not . . .” Leah pushed to a stand. “You know what, I don’t really need you making fun of me right now.”

  “Leah, sit down.” His voice was gentle. And that look in his eyes was almost the same as later that night, just before . . .

  Leah shook the thought away. “No. I need to go. But I will come up with a business plan, and a good one too. And prove to you I can do this.”

  She stormed from the room. Not the most professional exit, but this wasn’t business.

  This was personal.

  He’d managed to make Leah storm away from him yet another time. Jon jotted down a few notes for his uncle about the meeting, then rested his head back. The wide room that had been his office long before he was ready for this job. He hadn’t been much more than a kid—fresh out of high school. But he’d worked as hard as any full-time employee that summer. Then things changed, and when graduation rolled around, it had stayed empty.

  It wasn’t his dad’s office, which was Jon’s by right, but it was fine. And the only one Uncle Dale was willing to let him have. How had his uncle changed so much in so little time? He’d never know. It was Jon’s company, but his uncle had pretty much taken over. He’d even managed to pull half the board to his way of thinking. If Jon wasn’t careful, he’d lose the entire company to him. Maybe that was what Uncle Dale had had in mind from the very beginning.

  That was why he had been a little hard-nosed with Leah. All it would take was a failed project for his uncle to spin it to the board that Jon was unfit to lead. No matter how much he’d wanted to give in to her green eyes, he had to keep this professional. With any luck she’d come back with a plan he couldn’t say no to. But until then his hands were tied.

  If he believed in fate, he’d say the universe was against them. Six months ago, he’d let his hopes rise that maybe he’d finally get that long-awaited date with Leah Williams. He’d only been waiting almost fifteen years. But time and weather had been a fickle friend six months ago. Maybe if Leah could come up with a great plan, life would finally give them a chance to fix the past.

  Six Months Ago

  A notification popped up on Jon’s phone. There was no way he’d risk looking at the text when the road was limited to two tire tracks from the car in front of him. “Can you read that to me?”

  Leah lifted the phone from the cradle and scanned it. “Multicar accident on I-96 West. Consider alternate route.”

  “This is getting bad. We may have to try again in the morning.” The lit-up letters that spelled Hyatt in the distance caught his attention. Jon checked his mirrors and took the exit. He pumped the brakes a few times and blinked hard. Where had the road gone? All he could see was white disappearing into darkness. As if by a miracle, two slight divots of track appeared in the snow in front of him. “There’s a hotel up ahead.”

  “I can’t afford a Hyatt.” Leah’s voice jumped an octave higher.

  His pulse sped up as the lines of the road appeared and disappeared under the drifting snow. “I’ll pay for the hotel.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  Was she really arguing about money right now? He was just trying to keep them alive. He crawled the SUV to a stop at the red light. When the light turned green, he flipped on his blinker, then made sure the cross traffic could stop before pulling out. Green light or not, he had no desire to be T-boned. He pulled into the Hyatt and breathed a sigh of relief as the car rolled to a stop under the veranda. Valet parking had never looked so good.

  “I’m going to get us rooms.” He left the car running and slid out, but Leah followed him.

  As they crossed the lobby, her hand gripped his sleeve. “I can’t afford this.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He walked over to the check-in desk and ignored her wide-eyed stare at the high ceilings and chandeliers. “I need two rooms.”

  “One. I can get my own.” Leah stood with her back stiff and her wallet out. Man, the girl was stubborn.

  “We only have luxury suites left, sir.” The clerk’s fingers clicked across the keyboard.

  “That’s fine.” Jon waved his hand and reached for his wallet.

  The man rattled off the price per night, and Jon passed over his ID and credit card. He glanced back at Leah and saw she had gone three shades paler. If she thought this was bad, she should see the hotel prices in London.

  The man handed him back his cards and turned the digital screen toward Jon. “Here you go, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Jon picked up the stylus and scrawled his name across the screen. “Can you tell me the setup of the suite?”

  “A common area and two rooms. One room has a king-size bed and the other two queens. Each with their own private baths.” The man punched something into the computer. “How many keys do you need?”

  “Three.” He shot another glance at Leah and she didn’t argue.

  “I’ll pay you back.” Her whispered words had a bite to them.

  “For what? I would be getting the same room whether you were here or not. You can take the two queens with Abby.” He didn’t need her money, and he didn’t want her feeling indebted to him.

  “Fine. But I will pay for dinner.”

  “Nope. I’ve had enough driving blind for one night. It will be room service—charged to the room.” Jon walked back out and popped open the trunk. He’d have to hide the room service prices too.

  “You have to let me do something.” She reached for her bag, but he snagged it first.

  “Fine.” He handed over the keys to the valet and headed toward the elevator. “Make me dinner before you head back to Costa Rica.”

  “Dinner?” She seemed to be struggling to swallow. “Just the two of us?”

  “Smooth, big brother, but I still think it’s going to take more than that to make up for telling her she was a loser in high school.�
�� Abby huffed as she stepped into the elevator.

  He followed his sister and pulled out one of her earbuds. “I never said that.” He turned to Leah. “I never said that.”

  Leah seemed to be struggling to hold back a smile. At least one of them found this funny. “Fine. I’ll make you dinner in Heritage at my grandparents’ farm.”

  After an awkward dinner with little conversation and a hot shower to melt away the day’s stress, Jon grabbed a root beer out of the mini fridge and stretched out on the couch. He picked up the remote and started scanning the channels for the Lakers and Celtics game.

  The door creaked behind him just before Leah wandered out in pj’s with cupcakes all over them. She’d had on a hat earlier with her hair tucked up inside. But she must have showered, because now her red hair lay damp around her face, each section already beginning to form a spiral curl. “Can’t sleep?”

  “Still not adjusted to the time change. You?” He set his pop on the table and pointed to the fridge. “Want one?”

  Leah shook her head and took a seat at one end of the couch, then pulled her feet up under her. “Do you think we’ll make it in time for the wedding?”

  The wind still blew flurries in swirling patterns. “Not looking good. But I’ll do my best to get you there. I’d hate to miss it.”

  Leah leaned back, fanning her curls across the back of the couch. “When was the last time you were home?”

  Jon picked up a small pillow from the couch next to him and twisted it. “My parents’ funeral.”

  “Why haven’t you come back since?”

  Leah was never one to hold back, was she? He muted the TV and laced his hands behind his head. “Never seemed the right time.”

  “Didn’t your dad leave the company to you?”

  His dad had never thought he was up to the task. But Leah didn’t need to know all that. “Legally it’s my company, but Abby is attending boarding school in London, and I’m all she has left. Playing in the EuroLeague gives me the chance to see her more often. So as long as my contract keeps getting renewed, it doesn’t make much sense to come home. Uncle Dale was happy to help, and I understood he’d make changes. Someday I’ll take it over, but now doesn’t seem to be the right time.”

  “Why are you going home now?”

  He shot a look at the girls’ bedroom door. “Abby had a rough semester. Her professors thought it would be best to take a break at home between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So I took a leave of absence and here we are. I have to be back the first of the year, and so does she. But thanks for making me look bad in front of her earlier. You know she’ll never let me live that down.”

  “Hey, they were your words.” She laughed, and he found himself wishing for an infinite number of late-night talks with Leah in his future.

  “Yes, I said it. But I didn’t mean it like that.” He rubbed his hands across his face. With Leah he’d always fumbled over his words like a junior high boy learning to play basketball with his new man-sized feet, and three years in Europe hadn’t seemed to change that.

  “How else could you mean ‘I can’t believe you think you have a chance with Luke. You need to wake up and see what’s in front of you’?”

  “Ugh.” He buried his face in the pillow, then dropped it on the floor. “Okay, I was saying Luke only had eyes for Hannah, but there were other guys interested in you. You needed to look around.”

  “Other guys interested?” Leah released an unladylike laugh. “Not likely.”

  He reached for his root beer and paused. “There were guys interested.”

  “Name one.” She lifted her eyebrow and tilted her head as if to dare him. When he didn’t immediately respond, she dropped her feet to the floor and stood. “Exactly.”

  He clenched and unclenched his fist. Time to go big or go home. “Me.”

  Leah blinked at him as she dropped with a thud back on the couch. Then her brow wrinkled. “Don’t make fun of me.”

  “Are you kidding?” Jon leaned forward and ran his fingers through his hair. She was headed back to Costa Rica, and he was headed back to Spain, so it wasn’t like he needed to worry about scaring her off. He drew a deep breath. “Yes, Leah. I had a big crush on you in high school. That’s what I was really saying that day. ‘Hey, wake up and notice me, the guy who likes you.’”

  “You were always teasing me.” She stood again and moved toward her door. “Like you’re probably teasing me now.”

  Jon closed the distance in two strides and placed his hand on her arm. She paused but didn’t turn. He leaned down closer to her ear. “I wasn’t teasing you then, I was just really bad at flirting. And I’m not teasing you now.”

  Leah’s conflicted green eyes stared up at him. “You weren’t bad at flirting. You flirted with every girl at school. I remember.”

  “I thought you barely remembered me.” When she didn’t move, he leaned a fraction of an inch closer, and for one second he let himself believe that he’d finally get the girl of his dreams. But then the moment fractured as her eyes dimmed and she stepped back.

  “I guess it’s too bad I didn’t know that back then. But Costa Rica is pretty far from Barcelona, last I checked.” She retreated to the door, looked back once with a half smile, then ducked inside the bedroom and closed the door.

  Right. Time never seemed to be on their side.

  Present Day

  They had been snowed in at the hotel the next day as well, but they never neared the subject of high school again. That Sunday, Jon had driven her to the airport before heading to Heritage, and he hadn’t seen her since. Not until she walked into his office today. But if he had his way, it wouldn’t be the last time. Maybe time was finally on their side. He searched his schedule for her phone number and picked up the phone.

  The alarm on his cell chimed and shook Jon back to the present. Right, the board meeting. He hung up the phone, scooped up his stack of papers and a pen, and made his way down to the conference room. When he opened the door, everyone was seated and in full debate over an issue.

  Jon checked his watch as he moved to his spot at the table and slid into his chair. “I thought the meeting started at ten.”

  “We moved it up to nine thirty. But I knew you had a meeting.” His uncle waved his hand. “You didn’t miss much.”

  Not miss much? The more he hung around, the more he was beginning to realize that he’d missed a lot over the past three years, and if he didn’t watch his back, he might end up missing the company altogether.

  He opened the agenda and scanned it. His eyes paused on “Teft Road Building Project.” There was nothing on Teft Road but a few houses, JJ’s Food Mart, and . . . no, not that. The building where Leah wanted to reopen the WIFI.

  Leah and Caroline still owned a percentage of that building. The company would have to buy them out to do anything with the space. Not to mention the verbal agreement Leah said she’d had with his late father. He placed his finger on the building project. “What is this?”

  His uncle smiled at him as if he’d been waiting for this moment. “We’ve been approached by a chain store that would like to bring their business to town. We”—he motioned to the whole of the board—“feel like this would be a great opportunity to show your strengths as a future leader of this company. We would like you to be the point man on it.”

  Show his strengths? No doubt Uncle Dale meant show his strength by pushing Leah out and strong-arming the town into a store they didn’t want. Dale had probably pushed the meeting with Leah to Jon’s agenda because he knew what she wanted, but he wanted to make Jon the bad guy.

  Everything in him wanted to fight this, but one look at the men’s faces and it was clear that Uncle Dale had them in his pocket. Which meant this was a lose-lose situation.

  If he brought in this chain, Leah would never forgive him. But if he failed the board, he might lose his father’s company for good.

  Acknowledgments

  I never thought there would be anything harder than wri
ting that first book. Until I had to write my second book. But my faithful God always seemed to put the right people in my path to help the dream come true. And like always, there are so many I want to thank.

  My Lord and Savior—Thank You for the gift of writing, for leading me on this grand adventure, and most of all, for opening my eyes to this dream of writing in a slow, gentle way and keeping me on the path when I was ready to give up.

  Dave and Joyce Thompson—Thank you again for all you do to support my writing. You guys are such a gift. I wouldn’t be the mother, wife, or author I am without your support and lending hand.

  Scott Faris—Not only are you my champion, my love, and my hero, but you even read my stories and offer so much insight to make them stronger. You give up so much to make this dream possible. You’re my biggest blessing.

  Zachary, Danielle, and Joshua—Thank you for meal help, housecleaning, and even reminding me to drink water. You are such blessings to my life. I couldn’t do this without you.

  Dave and Jan Faris—I couldn’t ask for better in-laws. I appreciate your support and how you took in my family when I needed a quiet house to finish this book. Love having you so close.

  Andrea Nell—You are the best craft partner ever, one of my dearest friends, and a gift from God. Thanks for taking the time to read and help make the scenes sing.

  Mandy Boerma—You, my friend, rock! Thank you for reading and rereading to help make the story stronger.

  My Book Therapy—I am a published writer because of My Book Therapy, and that is not an exaggeration. The teaching, the books, the retreats—they built my career. I thank you.

  Susan May Warren, Beth Vogt, Rachel Hauck, Lisa Jordan, Alena Tauriainen, and Melissa Tagg—Thank you for your encouragement, talking me off ledges as “second-novel syndrome” set in, and basically praying me through this book. You are all a gift in my life.

  My agent, Wendy Lawton—Thank you for believing in me and my story. And thank you to the entire Books & Such team. It is a privilege to be a Bookie!