Mr. Wrong

by Taryn A. Taylor

  He put his arm easily around her and pulled her into him. “So do I need to sign something in blood, or how does this all work?”

  Sara found a station and leaned into him. “Nope. Honor code is the best policy.”

  “Ugh.” Beau made an unhappy face. “I always hate honor codes. They really do leave a person feeling guilty.”

  She sniffed and smiled. “That’s the breaks.”

  He kissed her cheek lightly.

  “Hey! I can see you’re not good at keeping a code.”

  Beau laughed. “I said I was going to start dating this girl tomorrow, I’ve agreed to nothing tonight.”

  Chapter 30

  Martha opened the door to Larry’s apartment, her face beaming with pride. “He’s done it. Come in.” Waving them in, she hugged Sara to her.

  Beau pushed in behind her, reaching for Martha and pulling her into a hug. “He didn’t?”

  Startled, that Beau seemed to know more than she did, Sara inched forward into the apartment behind him.

  Larry’s face looked slightly pale, but Sara could see that the twinkle was back in his eyes and, although he had oxygen attached to his nose, he seemed relaxed and happy.

  Martha put her hand out to Sara with a shy smile on her face. Sara picked up her hand and gasped. “Oh my goodness.” Warmth flooded through her, and she looked into Martha’s eyes.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  And it was. Red garnets surrounded a huge diamond in the middle.

  “We wanted you kids to know first. You seem more like family to us . . . especially after these last few days.” She turned to Larry and he nodded.

  Sara noticed that Larry wasn’t holding back any of his emotions anymore. The love he had for Martha was clear to anyone that saw the softness of his gaze.

  “She said she’d take an old buzzard like me.” Larry laughed a little and laid his head back in the chair.

  Sara went to him, giving him a big hug. She whispered into his ear, “I’m so glad you finally took a chance.” Pulling back she beamed at both of them. “You were meant to be together.

  Beau shook Larry’s hand, and they all sat down together. The little room of Larry’s apartment was small, but warm and cozy. Martha sat next to Larry her hand casually in his.

  “This is so awesome, you guys.” Sara meant it. She’d seen how close they were and how much they looked out for each other. It seemed like they’d been good friends for a long time, living in the Ivinson home together, but Sara had worried that they wouldn’t be able to see they could love again.

  Beau cleared his throat and looked at Sara expectantly. “Well, I think we should tell them our news.”

  Confused, Sara just stared at him. “What are you talking about?” It sounded like he was going to announce an engagement.

  Beau took Sara’s hand like he was going to propose.

  Her heart pounded like a heavy drum.

  “Sara has agreed to officially date me.” He was teasing her. His eyes held hers for a moment and then he laughed and turned to Martha and Larry. “In all seriousness it’s true.” Looking back to Sara he dropped his voice, conspiratorially, “These past few days while I’ve been visiting at the hospital we’ve been coming up with a plan.”

  Sara was a little bit taken aback that they had all been conspiring together. She started to feel even more embarrassed, but flattered at the same time. “Oh, yeah. What was this plan?”

  Martha waved her hand in the air. “Oh, sweetheart, you know how men are—it wasn’t that great. Basically it was a lot of moaning on Beau’s part about your Jonathon.” She winked at her. “Even though I never got to meet Jonathon I’m glad you picked Beau . . . he’s a pretty good guy.” She leaned over and gently squeezed his arm.

  Sara could see that Beau had obviously won Martha and Larry over for life. And, it was easy to see why. He had come to visit them and brought them food and just talked with them. It dawned on her that Beau was good with people. And he truly enjoyed helping them. She liked that about him.

  Embarrassed that Beau had made their dating sound so official, Sara sighed. “You make it so dramatic.” But secretly she was pleased that he was so happy about it.

  Larry coughed and looked at Sara. “So—this whole thing with Jonathon is over? Right?”

  He could read her. He always knew more than he led on.

  She shrugged.

  Beau turned to her. “I think that’s a fair question.”

  Sara felt rather put on the spot. She knew the whole plan may sound a little crazy. But she put her shoulders back and smiled. “I’m going to date both of them on a trial basis.” She did not want to get into the rules and all the technical matters.

  Beau smiled, spreading his hands out on his lap with a smug expression on his face. “I get the first eighteen days—he gets the next eighteen.”

  They were both giving her confused looks.

  Beau laughed and grabbed Sara’s hand.

  Sara started sputtering, trying to explain. “But I need to work some things out.” She frowned and pointed to Beau. “It was his choice, he agreed to it.”

  Beau laughed even harder, and Martha and Larry started laughing too.

  Martha put her hand softly on Sara’s hand, patting it lightly. “It’s okay, dear, we understand that matters of the heart are sometimes complicated.” She winked at Beau. “May the best man win.”

  **

  Sara woke up with a start, her heart beating wildly. She’d been dreaming of sitting with her dad in the grove. She sat up, realizing that she was at Beau’s house, on the couch, where she’d fallen asleep while watching a movie with him last night. The snow had been coming down so hard they had closed the highway into town last night. But she’d planned on sleeping in a proper bed in the guest room.

  A thick quilt was around her. She smelled bacon and pancakes. Jumping off the massive couch and flinging the quilt around her shoulders, she walked up the stairs to the kitchen. The light from the windows reflected brightly against the piled snow outside, reminding her of the ranch and how excited she’d been as a child to go outside and play in it.

  Beau stood there, in sweats and a t-shirt, sipping out of a cup and turning pancakes. “Good morning, sleepy head. Breakfast will be ready in just a minute.” He turned a pancake.

  “I can’t believe I stayed here.” Sara walked over to the windows and stared out at what appeared to be a winter wonderland. “How many inches?”

  Beau laughed. “Seventeen. Can you believe it? On top of the four feet earlier in the week, winter seems to have hit pretty hard.” He went to the sink and finished making up orange juice.

  “I need to go back to my place, Beau. I—I shouldn’t be here still. The For the Strength of Youth guidelines are too ingrained in my brain.”

  Beau chuckled. “I agree, you can’t be staying at my home, but no one is going anywhere for a while. The city of Laramie is shut down and anyone caught driving for non-emergency reasons will be ticketed and the university has closed, cancelling all classes. My mom stayed too; we were properly chaperoned.”

  Sara liked the lightness of his mood. She waited for Beau to join her at the table, and they said a prayer on the food. “Where’s your mom?”

  “She’s still getting ready. She said she wants to start cooking for Thanksgiving, anyway. We have a couple of people that we were planning to have out tomorrow, so as far as she’s concerned, she wasn’t going out at all today.” Beau took a bite and then covered her hand with his. “Do you want juice or hot chocolate?”

  Sara felt warmth go through her. This felt so easy and natural between them. “Juice, thank you.”

  Beau stood and poured her some juice. He sat back down. “So, since you’re stuck with me here, what do you want to do today?”

  Sara took another bite of pancake. “Is this homemade maple syrup?” It was so good. She closed her eyes, relishing the taste.

  Beau nodded.

  “Wow, it’s great.” She looked out the wind
ow again, even though it was bright, more clouds were forming, and Sara could tell that the storm wasn’t done. She looked back to Beau and smiled. “Let’s go sledding.”

  Beau’s face lit up even more. “Yes.” He sipped his hot chocolate and squinted his eyes, thinking. “Yes, let’s!”

  Chapter 31

  The powder was light, making sledding exhilarating and exhausting. The ride down was great, but the hike up was long. Sara and Beau sat on the downstairs couch eating lunch, wrapped in blankets together. Beau held her hand. They had decided on a movie marathon for the rest of the afternoon.

  Sara stared at him.

  “What?”

  She leaned over and wiped a dot of mustard off of the side of his face. “This has been fun today.” She tentatively touched the stubble he had on his face, running her hand over the side of his face and down to his chin.

  Beau put his hand on top of hers and closed his eyes. “Sara, you can’t do that and expect me not to kiss you.” He reached over and brushed his lips to hers.

  “Okay, I shouldn’t have done that.” She pulled away from him.

  Beau leaned into her, intent on kissing her again. “Once I’ve kissed, I can’t stop from kissing again. The rules have already been broken. Just make this infraction a felony instead of a misdemeanor.”

  She giggled and struggled to get out of the blankets.

  He pulled her to him, stopping right before their eyes met. “Since you can change the rules, you could just make kissing me okay.”

  The intensity between them was electric, and Sara knew she wanted to kiss him just as badly as he wanted to kiss her. But she didn’t lean in—somehow it didn’t seem like her fault if she didn’t move closer.

  Glancing back to her eyes, he smiled and released her gently.

  Disappointment circled her heart. Sara closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She needed to clear her mind. His lips were all she could think about. Feeling for the blanket, she leaned back, tucking the blanket around her like protection.

  She tried to act nonchalant. “So let me get this straight, I could change the rules so that I can kiss you, but not Jonathon.”

  Beau picked up the remote and paused the movie. “Works for me.” Scooting closer to her, he turned and asked, “Can I ask you something?”

  Sara knew something unorthodox was coming. “Maybe.” She ate some chips off of her plate.

  Beau took another bite of his sandwich and chewed. He drank some of his ice water, taking his time before finally asking. “What do you want out of life, Sara?”

  Looking at his face her mind went blank for a moment. Thoughts of a future with him in it were becoming easy to visualize. “Honestly, I don’t know. It used to all seem so clear to me, Beau. I had my five-year plan.”

  Beau took one of the chips off of her plate and popped it into his mouth. “Right, the five-year plan, probably written in a notebook journal you have somewhere?” He teased her, pulling her pony tail.

  “Yes, I did write it down, don’t you know you’re supposed to write goals down.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve written my fair share.”

  Sara turned her head away from him. Her pride was hurt at Beau making fun.

  “Okay . . . let’s hear the five-year plan.”

  “No.” She took a bite of sandwich.

  He laughed at her. “Please.”

  She shrugged. “I was going to go to school, marry Jonathon, finish school, have children, and, you know, create a business that would change the world . . . no big deal.”

  Beau took her hand easily and linked his fingers with hers. “Life does change in an instant sometimes.” He had a faraway look on his face for a second, then came back to her and smiled warmly. “So if you never got married . . .”

  “Oh, that’s easy.” Sara thought of her business plan. “I know you thought my idea was stupid, about doing the wheelchair business, but I really want to make wheelchairs assessable to everyone that needs them. I’ve been thinking a lot about it and doing more research because . . . well, I am still doing my business plan on it.” She raised her eyebrows at him.

  He raised his eyebrows back, not saying anything.

  “And I’ve found I can make a lot of money at it . . . through government grants. I know it feels complicated to you, but it’s not. I contacted an organization that helps write grants, and I am actually working with one of the volunteers on a grant proposal. I would love to make the aid available that the United States has set aside for charitable organizations, and get it approved to help other countries as well. These children need help. There are only a handful of organizations trying to help thousands of people. Beau, it’s just incredible the difference this could make in the lives of so many. And, as I mentioned before, more and more people will need wheelchairs every year.”

  Beau looked at her, his eyes hazing over. “I don’t think your idea is stupid.” He sat up, putting his plate aside. “You’re a lot like her.”

  Jealousy pricked at the edges of her heart as she thought about Beau with someone else. This seemed like a good opportunity to have some of her questions answered. “What was her name?”

  Beau hesitated, then stood and went to the entertainment center and pulled out a scrapbook. “Valerie.” He sat next to her and handed her the book.

  Sara opened it, seeing a picture of Beau and a beautiful, Italian-looking girl. “How did you guys meet?” The pages of the album looked worn, like he’d spent lots of time thumbing through it. She stopped—pausing to look at this younger version of Beau.

  “We met at the Y. The fire she carried for the gospel was amazing.” Leaning forward he touched a picture of them together at some type of dance. “She and I were called as activity co-chairs, and she was fun and intelligent and I could see myself spending the rest of my life with her.” His breath seemed heavier, but he put his hand over Sara’s. “Is this making you uncomfortable?”

  Her heart ached inside. It ached for his loss. And it ached because she knew that no matter what—Beau would never completely be hers. “I don’t know why I’m feeling a little jealous of her.”

  His face was sad and the lines around his eyes seemed to deepen. “Sara, don’t feel that way. I only say you remind me of her because she had a desire to help others too. In fact, we went to South Africa to build fish hatcheries with the Peace Corp because she wanted to make a difference in the world. I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but I was much more idealistic then too. I founded the project and funded it.” He looked down and put his hand on a picture of Valerie surrounded by children.

  Sara tensed and hated that the more she learned about Valerie, the more she liked her. “Are you okay, Beau?”

  He sniffed and wiped his face. “Yeah. I am okay.” He turned to her and smiled. “We’d only been married three months. We were working on the fish hatcheries, and she had pains in her hip and she kept telling me that it was just the physical work. She would feel fine on some days. I’ve tortured myself these past couple of years because by the time we found the cancer, it was stage four. The doctors said they couldn’t predict how long it might have been spreading inside of her, but there was nothing they could do. From the time she was diagnosed to death was six months.” The anguish on his face was enormous. “I met you at the airport three months after I’d lost her.”

  Her heart seemed to open to him at that moment—it was as if her own grief over her father mixed with his. She wiped another tear off of his face. “Oh, Beau.”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m fine.”

  Sara wanted to comfort him, so she hugged him to her.

  He chuckled. “Maybe I should cry more often.” He held to her, like a man holding to a life boat. “When I saw you that second time, on campus, Sara, I knew I had to get to know you. You were so beautiful and . . . and so rude.”

  She laughed, realizing that she was crying too.

  He pulled back from her. “Why are you crying, my sweet?”

  Sara smiled
, liking that he referred to her as sweet. “I can’t stand to have people cry alone.”

  Their faces were so close and the tension that was always between them was so intense that it was almost painful.

  “I . . . I,” his voice broke off. Beau moved a strand of hair out of her face.

  Sara’s heart felt like it would burst. She felt so confused in exactly the same way that she felt so happy.

  “You make me want to help people, again. I want to reach out and be a part of something bigger than myself.” He took both of his hands and ran them down her hair slowly. “And I want to be better than I am . . . than I have been.” His eyes were steady, but she noticed the pain inside of them. “What are we going to do?”

  She didn’t even make an attempt to pull away. This feeling was so intoxicating. She peered into his eyes and felt his breath on her lips.

  “Sara—I . . .”

  She kissed him.

  His eyes shot open, and he pulled away from her. “I have a past, Sara . . . that is why I tell you I can’t marry you.”

  Sara knew about his past—he’d just told her. “I know.”

  Beau jerked to his feet and began pacing, running his hand through his hair. “It’s—I . . . left the church for a while.”

  Left the church? Left the church for a while. Her mind raced, thinking of what, exactly, he was talking about. “So—you haven’t been actively going until you came back to Laramie?” He’d been in church since she’d known him.

  He sat down, taking her hand in his. “Sara, I—I doubted everything after Valerie died. My father’s death . . . well, it was different than when I lost Valerie.” Beau looked away and leaned back into the couch.

  Sara tried to register what, exactly, he was saying. In a way that made sense to her—he’d been hurt by his father and—even worse—he’d watched his mother be hurt. She squeezed his hand. “I get it, Beau. I mean, I get why you felt that way.”

  Turning back to her, his eyes looked tired and watery. “But—after I lost Valerie—it’s like . . .” He gripped her hand so tight she almost pulled away from him. “It’s like I couldn’t see past the hurt. The pain—watching her body go through those treatments. The sadness on her face as I watched her become emaciated.” Tears streamed down his face, and he wiped them angrily.