by Rachel Hauck
“He’s not my billionaire and I don’t want to convince him to—”
“Also, you might want to think about wearing tighter clothing, more makeup, and getting a gel manicure every two weeks. Just sayin’.” Sam shot her a big grin.
“Now I know you’ve lost your mind.”
She was supposed to be writing.
Holly had returned to her apartment hours ago after lunch at the Tacqueria. She’d stationed herself at her desk, which faced a glorious old window overlooking Main. She had her computer document open in front of her. Her environment cocooned her appropriately with quiet. Her pumpkin-spice candle was flickering and she’d answered her email. She should be writing. But all she’d been actively doing was waiting for a text or call from Josh.
Sam would not approve.
Beyond the window panes, the sun melted toward the horizon, casting amber light over Martinsburg—
Her phone rang. Holly lunged for it like a woman in sugar withdrawal lunging for the final truffle at a chocolate shop.
The screen announced the incoming caller as Amanda’s mom. Spirits sagging, Holly set the phone down and let it go to voice mail. Because of her volunteer position as Trinity Church’s wedding coordinator, either Amanda or Amanda’s mom called her almost daily. Holly found it more efficient to compile all their questions and address them at one time.
The cursor on her computer screen blinked, awaiting excellence. She tucked her feet underneath her crisscross style and swiveled her chair to face the interior of her home. It had taken her a good deal of time to exchange out all the old furniture her parents had loaned her for these new pieces she’d purchased for herself. Nowadays, her little place looked like the residence of an actual grown-up. Area rugs over the hardwood floors. Quality furniture she’d scored in back-of-the store bargain rooms. The sofa and padded ottomans were pale gray, brightened by one fabulous yellow raw silk chair, and several navy and white trellis-patterned throw pillows.
She’d built a home for herself in Martinsburg totally independent of her family and Josh. The home she’d made included her writing career, this community, her church, friends, relatives.
It hadn’t been easy to get herself to this place. It had been hardest of all during the months following her breakup with Josh. She could remember praying daily back then, hourly even, asking God what she should do, whether she should contact Josh.
Every time she’d prayed about it, she’d sensed God steering her to leave things as they were. Not to contact him.
The tremendous success Josh had enjoyed since then proved that God had been working out His plan for Josh’s life through the guidance He’d given her.
So how come she’d felt their old chemistry when she’d seen Josh today? She’d been faithful to God’s leadership way back when. So why hadn’t God done her the favor of taking away her feelings for Josh?
She planted an elbow on her chair’s armrest and leaned the side of her head into her hand. She’d been on plenty of dates with good guys, guys who were genuine and sweet and sometimes even very cute. Why hadn’t any of her adult relationships moved from interest/attraction to that thing much harder to attain: love?
The Sunday school answer was, of course, that God had been busy teaching her to be totally content in Him alone. Which was well and good, except that the pesky, romantic bent of her soul refused to quit hoping for a husband and one day, children. She was forever striving to balance peace with her singleness against her ongoing prayer asking God to prepare her for someone and someone for her.
Experience had taught her that heart-tugging, love-inducing men were scarce. She’d had one. Maybe she’d used up her quota.
Her phone chimed. She swung her chair back around and scanned the new text message. Are you free on Thursday afternoon to visit rehearsal dinner locations? If not, we can go whenever it’s convenient for you. Thanks, Josh.
Oh, bother. Here came all those unwelcome feelings again-giddiness, fear, excitement. She pushed one finger at a time into her palm, stopping just short of cracking her knuckles, while she pondered the gracious tone of his message. Appropriately grateful.
She channeled Sam and decided to wait an hour to reply. He didn’t need to know that she’d pounced on his text. She’d certainly reply in the affirmative even though a Thursday afternoon appointment would mean missing her favorite Zumba class.
Zumba would be available forever. Thursday’s outing with Josh presented her with a rare opportunity to achieve something with Josh she’d long wanted.
Closure.
If, when Josh left town in a few weeks, she could part with him on amiable terms, then perhaps she’d be able to close the chapter of her past with his name on it and move on to the someone God intended.
Chapter 3
She spotted Josh from half a block away. Casual and still, he leaned against the side of a black Range Rover, waiting for her. Even in jeans and a black crew-neck shirt, he gave off the impression of power, competence, and leashed intensity. He’d pushed his hands into his pockets.
Had he—this sophisticated man—really loved her once? It seemed a distant, fuzzy impossibility. You’re here for closure, she reminded herself. And to lend assistance to an old friend.
She’d contemplated taking him out in her car, since she was the one who knew the area. But she hadn’t been sure what twenty-six-year-old tech gurus were driving around in these days. She’d feared her aging Mazda Miata convertible too dated for him, its quarters too cramped.
She’d instead suggested he drive and that they meet here, at Smith’s Smokehouse. Parking around Main could be tricky for nonresidents without assigned parking spots. Smith’s had a big lot and a location near her apartment.
She stopped a few feet from him. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Josh studied her. “Thanks for helping me with this. I appreciate it.”
“I’m happy to. It’s a nice day for a drive.” The temperature had stretched all the way up to a crystal bright seventy-five. “You’ve given me a good reason to get out from behind my desk.” He opened the passenger side door for her. Buttery tan leather upholstery immediately embraced her.
He started the car and pulled onto the road. “Should we go see one of my picks first or one of yours?” he asked.
Via text they’d agreed that they’d each come up with two potential rehearsal dinner venues for today’s outing. “Either one.”
“Ladies first.”
“In that case, turn right at the light.” Holly took her wedding coordinator’s notebook from her purse and settled it on her lap. “Let’s start with the Texas Olive Oil Company’s farm. It’s just ten minutes outside town and they have a wonderful barn.”
A few moments of quiet. “The Texas Olive Oil Company you said?”
“Yes. I heard a rumor that they’ve started renting out their barn for functions. So I called them and asked if we could stop by for a tour.” She’d spent an hour or two brainstorming and researching fresh new rehearsal dinner ideas before deciding on her top choices. No one wanted to eat at the country club for the thousandth time.
“Would I need to rent tables and chairs and have the food catered if I hold it there?”
“Yes. Approximately how many guests are we talking about for the rehearsal dinner?”
He glanced across his shoulder at her. “Seventy.”
“I suppose that’s about right, considering the ten bridesmaids, ten groomsmen, the house party, the ring bearer, and seven flower girls.”
“Plus out-of-town family. Do you think this barn of yours will be big enough?”
“This barn of mine, I do believe, will be big enough.”
He rolled down his window and rested a bent arm on the door. Sunlight shimmered against his TAG Heuer watch and made clear the details of his beautifully masculine forearm, wrist, hand. His firm, aristocratic profile could have belonged to an Italian prince.
Try to think of him in a kindly fashion, Holly. Not so much prince-like as pleasant-old-frie
nd-like. “So, you live in Paris now.”
“I do.”
“What brought you to Paris?”
“I lived in New York after college, when my company was a start-up. But I knew I didn’t want to live there long term. I can headquarter just about anywhere.”
“Your company specializes in apps for smartphones and tablets?”
“You know about my company?”
“You knew about my books.”
“True.”
Holly’s knowledge about Josh’s company derived from two sources: Ben and her own thorough study. Over the years, she’d read every article on Josh and his business—both in print and online—that she could get her hands on. He’d been on the cover of Forbes once. Numerous times, he’d been given awards or asked to deliver speeches.
Josh’s mind had always fascinated her. Most of the kids in high school had been far more impressed by athletes who’d excelled at football or basketball. They’d viewed Josh—their very own version of Matt Damon’s character in Good Will Hunting—as somewhat of a mystery. Josh had been so off-the-charts brilliant that even his AP math teachers hadn’t been able to teach him anything he didn’t know. He’d crushed the SAT and ACT, and his GPA had been far enough above a 4.0 that no one, not even very-brainy Jim Wong, had come close to challenging Josh’s status as valedictorian.
Holly had been a relatively smart high school girl in her own right, just open-minded and quirky and mature enough to appreciate intelligence over how a guy’s bottom looked in football pants. Her strengths, however, had centered around subjects like English and history. Like most writers, she was anti-math. Nor was she terribly technological. She couldn’t comprehend the things that went on in Josh’s brain and yet his brain awed her just the same. “Since you can headquarter anywhere, why did you pick Paris?”
He scratched the side of his upper lip with his thumb.
“Because of the crepes?” she asked.
His dark gaze flicked to hers, glinting with humor. “The crepes aren’t bad.”
“No. I imagine the croissants and soufflés and macaroons aren’t terrible either.”
“Have you been to Paris?”
“Never. But I might have to go one day. For the crepes.”
He drove quietly.
“You decided to live in Paris because?” she prompted. He still hadn’t explained why he’d chosen it.
“It interests me. It’s historic and busy and full of art and beauty.”
“You love it there.”
“I like it there but I’m not tied to it. I may move somewhere else in a year or two. Berlin or London or Zurich.”
“But not back to the United States?”
They’d come to a light. He assessed her, his eyes saying a lot of things, all of which were shielded so carefully that she couldn’t decipher a single one. “Not anytime soon.”
For some reason, his answer saddened her. She issued more directions on how to get to the farm.
The outskirts of town ebbed away, replaced by the famous scenery of the Texas Hill Country. Rugged land, populated with cedar and live oaks, punctuated with outcroppings of granite and limestone rolled against a cerulean sky.
“Where are you staying while you’re in town?” Holly asked.
“My assistant rented a house for me in the Hollow.”
The nicest neighborhood in Martinsburg had been nicknamed the Hollow so long ago that no one remembered why. The home Holly had been raised in, which her parents still lived in part of every year, was located there. “What about this car? Also arranged by your assistant?”
“Yes.”
“It must be nice to have an assistant. Do you think I could find one who’d work for me for five dollars a day?”
“No.”
“Which explains my lack of one.”
“If you were willing to pay an assistant more you wouldn’t have to get your own coffee.”
He was referencing the coffee tray she’d been carrying the other morning. She refrained from mentioning that if she didn’t go out for coffee, she’d lose her mid-morning reason to change out of pajamas. “I’m willing to pay more; it’s my puny bank account that isn’t.”
They pulled into the olive farm. Bushy, thin-leaved trees that looked like something straight out of Galilee spread away from the barn and outbuildings in neat rows.
Josh and Holly climbed from the car and made their way toward the barn. Across the property, a middle-aged farmer lifted his head from a piece of machinery he’d been working on. “Hello there! I’ll be right with you.”
“No hurry,” Holly called back.
She and Josh waited by the two huge metal door panels that slid on tracks to open the front-facing side of the barn. A large flagstone patio extended from where they stood, overlooking a view that sloped gently down to Lake Cypress Bend.
Holly peeked up at Josh. He wasn’t admiring the view. Instead, he was watching her.
Warm, discomfiting attraction tugged within her. “What do you think?” She extended an arm to encompass the scenery. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
He gave it an obligatory scan. “It is.”
“If the weather’s nice, you could serve drinks or appetizers or dessert out here.” The nearby trees formed canopies over the open ground between rows, like charming tunnels of nature.
He returned to looking at her. “Tell me about your writing.”
She remembered that he’d always been quick to change subjects. He’d never had the patience to chitchat about things that didn’t interest him when he could jump the tracks to things that did. “What would you like to know?”
He asked educated questions about the business of publishing and about her writing process. It touched her that he cared to know about her whimsical and cherished profession.
She relaxed by degrees as they talked, just the two of them surrounded by air that smelled like fresh soil and the lavender growing around the base of the barn. It was a unique spell, this. A hawk rode the faraway wind—
“Hi there, y’all.”
She’d been so engrossed in their conversation that the arrival of the farmer came as a small surprise. A friendly man with a John Deere hat and a sun-worn face, he pushed open one of the sliding metal doors and ushered them inside the barn.
Unlike many of the leaning, ramshackle barns dotting the Texas countryside, this structure had likely been built in the last five years. It had plenty of windows, exposed wood walls, and wonderful cross-timbered beams spanning the peaked ceiling.
“A while back the boss had the idea of renting this place out for parties and such.” The farmer nodded toward the olive pressing machinery. “We put all the equipment on these here rolling platforms so we can move it out when needed.”
“Is it available Friday, November twenty-seventh?” Josh asked.
“Let me go get the book.” He bustled out.
“You like this barn of mine,” Holly stated, because she could see that he did. “You can see its potential.”
“Definitely.”
The farmer returned, holding a big and dog-eared calendar. Computerized calendars had not, it seemed, made their way to the Texas Olive Oil Company. “What date did y’all say?”
“The twenty-seventh.”
“Shoot. It looks as though the barn’s already booked that night.”
“It is?” She was a Martinsburg insider. As far as she knew, this site had only been used for a few high-end events in the past several months, mostly corporate. She hadn’t once doubted its availability.
“It sure is. I’m real sorry about that.”
Josh appeared unperturbed as he shook the man’s hand. They both thanked him and set off for Josh’s car.
Holly took one last, heavily disappointed look back at the barn. Such an ideal setting! Drat, drat, drat. “I apologize, Josh. I should have asked over the phone whether this place was booked that night and saved us the trip. They just began to hold events here and hardly anyone knows about it. I thought
this place was still a secret.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
They drove next to Holly’s second choice, a historic dance hall outside of town still used for the occasional visiting singer or county-western dance night.
Then on to Josh’s very unoriginal first choice, the country club. Thank goodness, the Ladies Golf Association already had it reserved the night in question. Lastly, they visited Josh’s second choice, a luxurious restaurant on the outskirts of town called the Lodge.
At each stop, Josh treated everyone with excellent good manners. He also took very little time to survey his options. Both the dance hall and the Lodge were available on the twenty-seventh, but he remained noncommittal.
“You don’t seem to be feeling the same urgency that I am about booking one of these places,” Holly commented as he steered the Range Rover toward downtown Martinsburg.
“I haven’t found what I want yet. I don’t like to settle.”
“Um, do you realize how particular Amanda can be?” Amanda would have wanted engraved rehearsal dinner invitations in the mail a week ago, minimum.
“I realize.” He smiled slightly, looking ahead at the road.
Holly considered that smile. Self-assured, unintimidated. “Very well then.” She refused to angst over the rehearsal dinner. She had her hands more than full already with wedding details.
It was enough that she’d started to accomplish today what she’d hoped for with Josh: a more upbeat ending to an important relationship that had ended on a huge downbeat the last time.
Their conversation had flowed easily enough and she’d come to feel mostly comfortable in his presence—which was above and beyond what she’d hoped for before he’d arrived in town. If their light interaction this afternoon felt shallow somehow, that was to be expected. Of course it felt shallow: it didn’t come close to addressing the magnetism, tension, and pain that lay between them.
During their last phone call before the breakup, they’d whispered words of love to each other. Now they were two independent adults in the latter half of their twenties, discussing things like whether a room had enough space for ten round-tops.
