Noah huffed. “Michael, I don’t know whether to hit you or hug you. I’ve been trying to get you two together and now you’re telling me you were trying to get us together. Will you ever tell the truth?”
“Did it work?”
“We’re not...together.”
Michael looked from one to the other, scowled and nodded, saying slowly, “Oh.”
Megan and Noah glanced at each other, then at Michael, and they all laughed.
Chapter 24
Michael said he’d go to Haiti next with the work crew. More damage had been done there than in Eleuthera. After he left, Noah asked Megan if she’d like to walk along the beach with him. She said yes.
He felt good about Michael. “You know,” he said, “I’ve tried to do what I thought best to help Michael. I’ve prayed, talked, assured him I was there for him and tried to help you understand him.”
“I know,” she said, giving him a sidelong glance. “How does it feel to no longer be working on the project of getting us together?”
“Well,” he said slowly. “It’s only been about forty-five seconds since I was taken out of that responsibility. This is, um, a little new to me.” He still wasn’t sure. He knew what he wanted, but... “You seemed comfortable with him.”
“Yes, but it was getting a little crowded with the three of us all the time.”
Did she mean Michael had been in the way? Or Noah?
They kept walking and she said, “I like Michael. But there’s nothing personal anymore. He’s...history.” She smiled at Noah. “I think Haiti will be good for him. I want the best for him. Like you said you wanted the best for me.” She paused, then said tentatively, “I don’t want you to go to Haiti.”
“You don’t?” He thought she was teasing him. He warned himself not to be hasty. That wasn’t a creek out there. Just the churning dark blue Atlantic Ocean to the east and the calm aqua-green waters of the Great Bahama Bank to the west. He doubted she’d find it romantic to plunge into either.
He stopped and reached down. Then he raised up and held out his hand. “Would you like a shell?”
She nodded. “I’d love one.”
She looked at it, held it to her ear, then put it in her pocket. They kept walking. She said, “If we don’t turn back we’re going to run out of pink sand and walk right off the mermaid’s tail.”
He stopped, considering what to do. Pretend to be a calm sea or chance being a churning ocean.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked.
“I was thinking about Symon and Annabelle’s creek.”
She looked out the water and back at him. “It looks nothing like the creek.”
He began to grin. She looked a little surprised, then he was sure that was an invitation in her eyes.
“You think that creek incident could really compare with walking on pink sand and standing on a mermaid’s tail?”
“I don’t know,” she said and added softly, “yet.”
Strange, this sense of freedom. He no longer had to be torn by what he wanted and what he thought might be God’s will for her and Michael’s lives. He was free to...
Love or lose.
But free to try.
“Megan,” he said and reached for her.
She looked at him for a long moment. Her soft glance went to his hair and so did her hand. “Your hair is gold and orange-pink, like the sky.” He felt her fingers brush it aside like a caress, and then she was in his arms.
She didn’t pull away. His lips were on hers, tasting the sweet honey of them, and he was holding her close and she was returning his kiss. Vaguely, he remembered something about two kisses, but this was not a game of competing with anyone.
It was a matter of the heart, so he took her by the shoulders and moved her away enough to look into her beautiful face.
Her laugh was happy and sweet. “I’ve waited a long time for that. We’ve been walking and walking, and I’ve been waiting for at least fifteen minutes.”
Noah laughed lightly. They hadn’t walked for more than five minutes. But the waiting? Yes, he, too, had been waiting a long, long time and hadn’t even known it. Something about this seemed right, complete.
He held her head against his chest and hoped the sound of his heart sent the message that he could not speak in words.
Finally, he found a few words. “I’ve been so afraid of my feelings for you, Megan. I knew right away I could fall in love with you. But it seemed my purpose was to bring you and Michael together.”
She was looking up at him, her face aglow, reflecting the colors of the sky. He never wanted to let her go. This was too wonderful to believe. “I will be praying it’s God’s will you can love me.”
Her nose crinkled. “It’s fine to ask God, but you might try asking me, too.”
“Hmmm,” he mused. “I’ll think about that.” He was glad for the more playful mood. He kissed her lightly and she returned it.
“I want some pink sand,” she said.
“What will we put it in?”
There was only one thing he could do. They held hands on the way back to the others. Lizzie must have been watching for them. She looked at the shoe he held and the way he limped along with only a sock on one foot.
She shook her head. “I knew it,” she said. Then she made a clicking sound.
* * *
Neither Megan nor Noah tried to keep their feelings for each other a secret. But there was little time for anything but Noah’s tending to work because he’d been occupied with other things so much during the past weeks.
Henri regretted having to leave but feared he’d wear out his welcome. He wanted Aunt B and any of them who could to visit him at his villa. He had plenty of friends in France, but he’d like to spend time with his new friends. They would make plans for visiting and he might even decide to buy one of those historic homes in Savannah and spend more time there.
Noah called Megan. “I want to date you and for us to get to know each other.” He asked her out for Friday evening. She was sitting in a rocking chair on Aunt B’s porch when he came to pick her up. “I have something special in mind,” he said.
When he drove to The Olde Pink House she thought he probably chose that as a reminder of the pink sand of Eleuthera and their first kiss. He pulled around to the back, and she didn’t think much of the pumpkin-shaped carriage and white horse because she’d seen them many times.
Noah led her to it. Carl appeared, dressed in a white suit, and jumped up into the driver’s seat. Noah opened the wrought iron door and held out his hand for her to enter. He got in beside her and off they went.
She felt like Cinderella going to a ball with a handsome prince. The clip-clop along the cobbled streets and the sway of the carriage were like music. Carl drove them to a white gazebo at one edge of Forsyth Park with a sign marked “Private.”
Noah led her into the gazebo. She knew about this kind of event but had never thought she’d be part of one. She’d heard about the roses and champagne, as the drink of choice, and the chocolate. He handed her the rose and sang a love song to her.
“I wanted to do something special when telling you that I love you. I know it’s too soon to ask for a commitment and...”
She didn’t let him finish. There was no need. The lips had a language of their own. After a while they walked around on the brick walkways, held hands at the beautiful fountain, spoke softly beneath the moss-laden majestic trees. The sun turned the world into dappled jewels of gold and pink and orange.
The most beautiful of all was the feeling of having found the one you want to spend your life with.
“This is wonderful,” Megan said. “How did you ever think of it?”
He smiled down at her, no reserve in his eyes now, no caution, no restraint, just letting her know
he loved her. “You began to see me when we took that carriage ride. The words in one of the brochures is BEST HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. I thought you and I might repeat the carriage ride and begin making our own history.”
She nodded. Yes, she was thinking of the adage that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
She was already ready for his arms as he said, “I want the history of you and me to be repeated every moment of our lives. Not doomed. But blessed.”
“Now, there’s a lesson in love,” she said. And they put action to the words as they stood in the shadow of a live oak with Spanish moss swaying gently over their heads and a soft breeze singing its love song.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460317433
LESSONS IN LOVE
Copyright © 2013 by Yvonne Lehman
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Lessons in Love Page 17
