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Pete could hear the stress in Angela’s voice as she called him quickly during a break in meetings. “This meeting between FEMA and the city and your friends is taking longer than I thought it would. We’re making progress, and I think we’ll be able to get the negotiations finished today, but I probably won’t be back at the apartment until after dinner. I hate to impose, but can Celina join you for dinner?”
“I brought her home with me from the church. She’s dancing with that game again right now while I finish up the last few details we need to open The Grace Space officially at the end of the week.”
“So it’s really coming together quickly?” Her voice took on a slightly higher pitch, a glimmer of hope breaking through the stress.
"It is. I've gotten so much cooperation from my contacts at Provident Medical and the medical school plus the people on the mainland that I contacted. Everyone wants to feel useful right now, and this is giving them a great chance to help out and use their skills."
"Sounds wonderful. Maybe between your project and mine, we can finally get things moving on the island and bridge that gap between disaster and whatever normal is going to look like here going forward." She paused, and Pete could hear voices in the background. "I have to go—our break is over. But thank you for watching Celina this evening. I guess I owe you again."
Pete didn’t need to be thanked for spending time with Celina. The little girl had bloomed practically overnight. He could barely believe that the dancing, singing rockstar in front of him was the same clingy, wary girl he’d met only a few days ago.
“You don’t owe me anything,” he said, while his mind slipped back to that lightning-quick embrace she’d given him last night. It had been a long time since an unexpected emotion had jumped through his being. If he could collect anything in return from Angela, it might be another opportunity to know, even for a short moment, he could still feel.
Angela said goodbye and hung up. Pete stared at the phone in the palm of his hands. He'd always thought there'd never be enough time to process all he'd lost when he lost Anna. But if he was honest, he'd now lost his job and place of employment and much of the town he currently called home. He was determined to rebuild those things, to envision life differently—not as a doctor delivering babies, but as a doctor doing meaningful work on behalf of people around the world who had nothing. He could see his life moving from Port Provident to some far-flung corner of the world. He had embraced the idea of leaving the clinic behind and setting up shop in a tent or some other mobile clinic.
If he could envision all of that, why couldn’t he envision his emotions differently?
He didn’t have the answer. And part of him didn’t like that a two-second hug and a brush of hair from last night had him questioning all of this. He tried to steady all of the forts he’d built around his heart just to keep moving after he realized there’d be no wedding to Anna and there’d be no happily ever after. He wasn’t ready for those barriers to crack or crumble.
Pete looked from the phone to Celina. He didn't have the answer to these more significant emotional questions about where his future might lead, but he did have a box of microwaveable quick-cooking mac and cheese in the kitchen and some fishing poles down in the garage.
Besides, he reassured himself, he didn't have to have the answer because in a few weeks it would all be a moot point anyway. He'd go to wherever Mercy Medical Mission was sending him, and he'd never have to see the multi-colored look of warm maple syrup in Angela Ruiz's eyes again. He wouldn't have to question why he cared about how he felt last night when her arms flung around his shoulders.
"Hey, Celina?"
She stopped her dance of perpetual motion at the sound of his question.
"Hey, Dr. Pete. What's up?"
“Have you ever been fishing?”
Her eyes grew as large as those on the sand trout he soon hoped to be catching. "No, never. Mama doesn't really like slimy things, and fish are kinda slimy."
Pete chuckled. “That they are, Celina. But they’re also pretty tasty. What do you think of some quick mac and cheese and then we can walk down to the end of the street and see what we can find out in the bay?”
Celina nodded, a much more satisfactory answer to a much more important question than anything else he’d been wondering in the past few minutes.
The bobbing of the water had always soothed Pete's soul. But he had no idea how much seeing a simple fishing trip through a child's eyes could make him smile as well.
Celina loved everything about their fishing adventure. She wanted to look in the marsh grass and see small minnow-sized fish hiding in between the blades. She stood at the water’s edge, looking studiously for crabs or other meandering crustaceans. She even made up a song that consisted liberally of the line “Hey, fishy fishy! Come and swim on by!” sung over and over.
There was late day sun, a gentle breeze that ruffled the hair which stuck out below his baseball cap, and a sense of peace that he hadn’t felt since long before the storm.
Pete took a half-step back and raised his arm, then cocked it back and cast his pole. The line curved in a perfect parabola and landed right in the deepest part of this small finger that marked the border of the Seagull Cove community.
Now to wait for the tug of a fish at the other end of the line, which was perfect, because for right now, Pete felt like he had all the time in the world.
“Pete! I thought that was you. But who’s this?” Dr. Gordon Patterson and his black Labrador retriever slowed as they came around the curve of the sidewalk. Dr. Patterson was chief of the division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at Provident Medical, and he’d become a mentor to Pete during the years Pete had run the birth center at the edge of the large teaching hospital’s shadow.
“Hey, Gordon. This is Celina Ruiz. Her mother is City Councilwoman Angela Ruiz. I’m watching her for a bit this afternoon while her mother is in a meeting with FEMA and the city regarding temporary housing arrangements.”
Gordon gave the leash a little slack so his dog could sniff at the edge of the marsh grass, not too far from Celina’s perch. “I heard they had to move everyone back to the shelter at the high school.”
“There was a shooting. Angela and Celina actually came to stay in my downstairs apartment after that.”
Gordon nodded. “A shelter is no place for a child. She looks like she’s enjoying Provident Bay life just fine.”
Pete gave the pole a gentle pop to keep the line moving and hopefully catch the eye of an interested fish. “Most definitely. I’ll definitely miss it myself, once I’m gone.”
“Heard anything back yet?”
"No, but I'm expecting something any day now. I was told it was just a matter of getting some things moved around and then finding a slot to put me in. It's more or less a done deal."
“So, how long are you going to be gone for?” Gordon adjusted his sunglasses as the sun shifted a bit in the sky.
“I don’t know. I don’t really have a timeframe. As long as they need me, I guess. But with all the heartache around the world, I guess they’ll always need me.” Pete gave a bit of a shrug. He hadn’t given too much thought to coming back, just to going.
“Well, you can’t stay forever, Pete. Or you’ll miss out on moments like this.” The older man pointed at Celina, studying the crawl of a crab in the muddy shallows.
Pete turned slowly and looked back at his mentor. Gordon gave a little wave. "Well, I guess you could definitely get married and have a family anywhere in the world. Just whatever you do or wherever you go, don't isolate yourself. Work can do that to you. I was so focused on medical school, residency, fellowships, the pursuit of excellence in medicine that I lost track of a whole other track of my life. I lived to work. I didn't work to live. When I married Olivia, I was past forty. When we started having kids, I was forty-five. I'd spent so many years thinking of my job first that when I realized Liv was the one thing in my life I couldn't do without—well, nobody likes to say this, but I had some regrets about how I'd prioritized things over the years. However, I used the opportunity to take a hard look at myself and where I was going, and I think I've got it right. There's a balance there, and I wouldn't have missed this second phase of my adult life for the world."
Woof. Gordon’s dog let out a low, bass rumble.
“Enjoy the fishing Pete. It was good to see you—it’s been too long. No matter where you wind up, don’t be a stranger, okay?” The dog let out another woof, as punctuation to his owner’s sentence. Gordon gave the leash a quick tug and took a step. “It sounds like he’s ready to go.”
“It does indeed. Good to see you too, Gordon.”
Pete watched the dog trot ahead, as far as his leash would allow him to go. Gordon was right. The dog was ready to go. And until this very moment, Pete had been ready to go too. He shifted his gaze from the black Lab back to the little girl who had made the afternoon so fun and full of memories.
He'd once talked of marriage and family like it was a given in his life. Then those dreams had been pulled away, and he'd refocused his life and his goals in the wake of unexpected tragedy.
Pete couldn’t deny—didn’t want to deny—that he’d been called to serve others. But as he’d baited Celina’s hook and pointed out crabs and little fish to Celina, he also couldn’t deny something had stirred way down in the bottom of his heart. Something he thought he’d packed away forever.
And he hadn't seen Gordon in months, so it couldn't have been a coincidence that he just happened to be walking his dog on this stretch of sidewalk by the bay and drew the conclusion about the afternoon that Pete had been hesitant to draw for himself.
He’d just wanted to create some memories for Celina—every kid on an island needed to know the joy of casting a line in the water.
But had he unexpectedly created some questions for himself?
Angela had finally gotten her car out of the parking garage where she’d left it during the storm. Now that she was commuting between Seagull Cove and downtown Port Provident, she needed it again. Once she’d made it back to Pete’s, she parked her car between the pilings of the beach house, near the door to her temporary downstairs apartment home. She climbed the stairs and went to the door and knocked, eagerly anticipating one of Celina’s all-encompassing hugs.
But there was no answer. And strangely, she didn't hear any noise from the other side of the door, either. No danceable pop music was blaring from the TV and no sounds of dinner, like the clink of silverware on a plate.
Angela’s breath came short. Pete had said he would take care of her little girl and feed her dinner. How stupid could she be to assume that meant they’d stay at the house. How stupid could she be to leave her daughter completely alone—without at least the watchful eyes of the abuelas at La Iglesia—with someone she barely knew.
She would have kicked herself, but that would take time away from digging in her purse for the key to the beach house that Pete had given her. She found it in the corner of the zippered pocket at the back of the bag, and with a slight tremble in her fingers, she forcefully pushed the key into the lock and turned.
The door opened and revealed that she’d been right. The house was empty. Angela felt a boulder avalanching through her chest as her heart pounded wildly out of control.
Where were they?
Where was her precious Celina?
Quickly, she ran through the house, looking for any clues to where they might have gone, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary or out of place. In the corner of the living room, she stopped. Placing her hands on her hips to steady herself, Angela looked out the window blankly, racking her brain for some idea of what to do.
A car driving past on the street below caught her attention. Her eyes followed as it headed for the bend at the end of the street. As the red sedan rounded the curve, Angela noticed two people sitting atop a concrete picnic table underneath a flat metal shelter. A baseball cap mostly covered the hair on one head, but she could see a mix of brown and premature silver mixing under the edge of the white cap. The other head was covered in thick black hair, held in a sturdy ponytail high atop the crown of the skull.
As she waited for her breathing to flutter back down to a more normal rate, she watched the scene below. Pete pointed up at a seagull cruising past on the breeze. Celina leaned toward Pete as though she were saying something. Pete tipped his head back laughing, and put his arm easily around Celina’s shoulders and gave it a gentle squeeze.
Moments before, Angela would have sprinted to the ends of the earth to find her baby. Now, she stood in the corner of Pete’s small living room, rooted to the hardwood flooring below her feet as she took in the full scene.
Fishing poles rested against the side of the picnic table, and a tackle box sat nearby. Angela could see the back-and-forth of little tennis shoes as her daughter’s feet swung happily off the edge of the table.
But most of all, Angela saw something she’d never before seen in Celina’s life—the glimpse of a father figure. Someone who would teach her to cast a rod and ride a bike and put a bandage on a scraped knee when she slid too hard into first base. Celina’s biological father left when he decided a child was going to get in the way of his television career. And while Angela tried to be everything to her little girl, she knew there were limits to how much she could do in any given day.
Since Celina's arrival, Angela hadn't dated, and there weren't any other people who were true caregivers for her daughter outside of a few close family members. No one filled the shoes left by Celina's absentee father, but Angela had never pushed it.
Still processing her thoughts, Angela left her purse on the table, taking only the set of keys so she could lock the front door behind her. As she set out down the street to join her daughter and Pete in this new, unspoiled moment, Angela heard the echo of her footsteps over and over. But as she got closer and closer to the picnic table at the bend in the road, the little voice in her head began to drown out the grind of her shoes on the concrete.
And with every passing step, the still small voice asked Angela if she'd been wrong in keeping Celina's primary relationships inside a small circle of trusted old friends and family. Whom had she been trying to protect more—Celina or herself?
After the sun had set in the sky, Pete and Angela followed behind Celina as she skipped back toward the house. Once they were back at the house, Angela scooted her daughter toward the door to the studio apartment and told her to take a quick shower and get her pajamas on. Celina scampered off with a smile on her face and a skip in her step—but not before she ran with open arms to Pete and gave him a bear hug-style exuberant embrace.
“Whoo-wee.” Pete dragged each letter out as long as he could. “You smell like a crab net. Go get a shower, kiddo.”
“Can we go again, Pete?” Her smile lit the space under the beach house brighter than a thousand fireflies.
“Well, not right now. You stink. You’d scare all the fish off.”
“Fish don’t have noses, Pete,” Celina said, matter-of-factly.
He shook his head. “I don’t think it would matter. There isn’t a living creature out there who wouldn’t know you were coming. Scoot, kiddo. We can go again someday soon. As long as you and your mom stay here in the apartment, the fishing spot is always right at the end of the street. It’s not going anywhere.”
He gave her a playful push on the shoulder. And surprisingly, the little girl ducked inside the apartment with nothing more than a nod of agreement and a big thumbs up.
Angela watched the whole exchange and the fear she’d felt creep in earlier—that she hadn’t done enough, been enough for her daughter—faded away. A warmth like the perfect cup of coffee flooded the veins under her skin, and she noticed the liquid gratitude. She wished she could bottle it and bring it out for all those other moments she knew would come when she questioned her parenting.
“Thank you,” she said simply.
Pete nodded, the yellow hue of the bug light made his hair glow like a highlighter marker she kept in her desk. “Anytime.”
“No, really, I mean it.”
The color in Pete’s eyes shifted to something that reminded her of flint. If she hadn’t been trying to be deliberate in expressing the simple gratitude she felt inside, she’d have missed the subtle straightening of Pete’s shoulders as they shifted down and back.
“I meant it too, Angela. I don’t say things I don’t mean.” He kept his gaze locked on her face. “She’s a good kid. Helping look after her has not been a burden.”
It wasn’t just what he said, but how he said it, that made the warmth of the gratitude in her veins tick up a few degrees and stretch all the way from a tingle over the curve of the tops of her ears all the way down to her feet.
"I know she is." Angela tried to focus but kept getting lost in the feeling that was pooling into her heart. "It's just been me and her for so long. Her own father doesn't even give her the time of day. He even forgot to send a Christmas present two years ago. When he does remember, he's like Disneyland Dad, trying to throw stuff at her, so he doesn't have to invest in any time with her. We hear from him once or twice a year, if that."
The glint of steel fell from Pete’s eyes. “So he doesn’t have anything to do with Celina at all?”
“Not really. He didn’t want her. He told me before we got married that he didn’t want kids, he wanted a career—he’s an anchor with Channel Four up in Houston. I agreed because I thought that’s what I wanted too. Then I found out I was pregnant. Everything changed for me, but for him, it didn’t. He left before Celina was born.”
“He just left you?”
Angela took a deep, fortifying breath before speaking. She never talked about this period of her life. Not with her mother, her sister, anyone.
She couldn't explain why she was confessing all this to Pete. Except that he cared. He cared about her; he cared about Celina. That much was clear, even if nothing else was clear about anything since the hurricane blew through her island home.
“He was offered a promotion at the station at the same time. They wanted to promote him from reporter to an anchor on their morning show. It was a huge step forward on his career path. He’d always been clear about what he wanted. I’d grown up in the shadow of a marriage that was for the sake of the kids, where one parent resented the other one. I didn’t want that for my daughter.” She shrugged. It seemed like the only thing to do. “So I let him go. I told him to go.”
“Oh.” Pete’s tone conveyed an uncertainty about the whole situation. “But he never came back? For Celina?”
Angela felt the corner of her mouth twist. “Well, no. His career took off after that. Everyone in southeast Texas knows David Carbajal. I guess he just had other things to do. But I can’t resent it, Pete. He was clear with me from day one, before we were even married, and I’m the one who told him to go.”
“David Carbajal? Celina’s father is David Carbajal?” Pete raised his eyebrows. “Wow, when you say his career took off, you weren’t kidding.”
The squeak of the saltwater-rusted hinges on the apartment’s door broke up the trail of conversation.
“Mama? Can you come tuck me in? Brownie and I have our pajamas on. Well, Brownie just has fur. But fur means he’s not naked, right, Mama?” She helpfully held the bear out for inspection.
Angela shook her head. “No, sweetie, Brownie is perfect the way he is. Just like you are. Perfect the way God made you. I’ll be right in.”
“Bedtime.” She pointed over her shoulder at the door, while giving Pete one last glance. “Thanks again for taking her fishing today.”
“Like I said—anytime.” Dual creases cut vertically between Pete’s eyebrows. “Hey, Angela...”
She stopped, torn between bedtime duties for a bear and his best friend, and wanting to know the rest of what Pete had to say.
“Hmm?”
“After you tuck Celina in, if you want to come sit up on the deck for a little bit, I think I’m going to get out my telescope and look at the stars. There’s supposed to be a small meteor shower tonight. I’ve seen a few before out here. It’s amazing to watch the stars falling from out here.”
Angela stood still and looked right at Pete’s face. She only gave herself a second, but she looked at the gray eyes that lit up at the sight of her daughter, at the brow that furrowed when she revealed how Celina’s father had left them both behind, at the jaw saved from being square by a thick dusting of post-hurricane stubble. She looked lower at the hands that had treated her when her blood sugar had dropped, the hands that had carried Celina to a safe bed to sleep in and had pulled in a small, wriggling fish on her fishing line.
“Okay. Give me a few minutes. I think she’ll crash pretty quickly. She’s had a big day.”
Angela turned and walked the few steps to the door of her temporary home under Pete's home. And as she tugged at the doorknob, it hit her like the splash of a stormy wave.
The stars in the sky weren’t the only thing falling.
Pete placed two bottles of water on the top of the small round table between the two Adirondack chairs on the deck. The telescope was in the corner, and all there was left to do was wait.
He tried to tell himself he was waiting on the light show in the heavens, but as he checked his watch for the third time since sitting down, he knew he was really waiting on Angela.
But waiting for what?
He lived his professional life asking questions, getting answers, and then tying it all together for a diagnosis. That’s what he’d been trained to do as a doctor. But this...this was something he couldn’t identify.
What he knew for sure was that he admired Angela’s steadfast resolve. Whether it was taking care of her daughter or fighting for the citizens who’d elected her, she picked up every burden in her path and shouldered it seriously, but with an unmistakable dose of grace. He also knew that the last few days, spending one-on-one time with Celina had brought just as much of a smile to his face as it had to the little girl’s.
And speaking of smiles, Angela hadn’t cracked too many of them since they’d met, but when she did, Pete forced himself to admit that they stayed on his mind, running in a replay loop. He’d been intrigued by her since the moment he met her. He knew if Gloria considered her a friend, then Angela met a very high standard. Gloria had been through so many upheavals and tragedies in her life that she didn’t trust easily. But Angela was in her inner circle, and that spoke volumes to Pete about the kind of woman she was on the inside.
A shuffling of feet up the stairs at the far edge of the deck announced Angela’s presence before she reached the top.
“Wow. What an amazing view,” she said as she stepped one foot onto the deck and looked up. Specks like a child’s spilled container of glitter covered the sky as far as the eye could see.
“Without any light pollution, it’s amazing. All of our street lights out here are pretty dim and designed to shine straight down, instead of illuminating a greater area.” Pete pointed off the front and side of the deck. “And with the gulf out front and the bay at the end of the street, it makes it even darker. I love sitting out here. If I’ve had a long day, it’s the best way I know to decompress.”
“I could sit here and not move for a year and still probably not completely decompress,” Angela said as she sat in the empty Adirondack chair. “I’m not even sure I know how to relax anymore.”
Pete cracked open both bottles of water and offered Angela the one he’d brought for her. “I know it’s been busy for you since the forecasts showed Hope coming this way. But it won’t always be like this. Things will settle down.”
She took a sip of the water, then screwed the lid back on and played with the bottle absently as she stared up at the sky. “Maybe for some people. They’ll get order back in their lives. They’ll rebuild their homes, go back to work, start to get back to normal. But that won’t happen for me.”
The sadness in her voice couldn’t be missed.
“Why not? Of course things will get back to normal.”
“I sit in meetings all day long right now. I know what we’re up against. Once we get temporary housing settled, then there’s just another problem to solve. Then another and another and another. How will our businesses in downtown come back to life? Will the tourists return? They drive our economy. What about Provident College and the students there? We’re still assessing the damage to Provident Medical Center and the medical school. The brief I was provided yesterday gave a conservative estimate of a year to get Provident Medical back open. You’re connected there, Pete. I don’t have to tell you this—Provident Medical is our largest employer. We can’t have the place that provides more than a third of the jobs on this island closed for a year.”
She looked squarely at Pete, and he thought he could make out a sheen of liquid along the lower lids of her eyes. There was no doubt that she took her responsibility seriously.
Maybe almost too seriously. He definitely didn’t want Angela to get so stressed out that she couldn’t manage her blood sugar efficiently.
He shifted in his chair slightly, turning his knees so they faced hers, separated by only a few inches. Pete felt a pull akin to the tide that flowed through the surf just out on the horizon, and he acted on it, taking Angela's hand in his own.
In medical school, he’d received surgical training. He knew how to keep his hands still, to focus on the job in front of him. But the frisson of electricity that sparked between his palm and the curve at the base of Angela’s thumb almost caused him to lose his train of thought.
All he remained aware of was the stars in the sky and the softness of her skin as she allowed her hand to rest in his.
She didn’t pull back. He noticed that, and with that realization, he relaxed just enough to let out his breath.
“You don’t have to carry the burdens of everyone on the island, Angela. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Port Provident in the time I’ve lived here, it’s that this is a true community. There is always a helping hand on this island.” He held her hand lightly, indulging the connection just a little longer. “I know you hear all the commentary and see all the briefs, but no one expects you to take them all on. You’re leading the charge on temporary housing. Focus on that, then when you get to a good point, find another focus area.”
She didn’t say anything in reply.
“Come here,” Pete said, gently tugging on her hand.
She stood up as he did. He let go of Angela's hand, feeling a whisper of night air come between them. Instead of falling to his side, his hand stopped halfway and settled at the curve of her lower back. He let instinct take over and told himself to simply be, not to question it.
Just as when he took her hand, she didn’t flinch. Pete pointed at the sky with his other hand. “Look at those stars.”
She nodded as he gestured from one side of the horizon to the other. “Mmm-hmm?”
“Well, they’re all stars. They’re all bright enough to bring light to a planet, like our sun does. But none of them can brighten this whole sky on their own. But when they all work together...this is what you get.”
She turned toward him. “I get what you’re saying. I just don’t want to let anyone down. Remember what I told you about David, how that promotion was his chance to do what he had always wanted to do? I guess in some strange way, I feel like this is mine. I’ve always wanted to be here, to make a difference here. As bad as it is right now, we’ve been given an opportunity to reimagine Port Provident and do some things we’ve been talking about for a while because there’s virtually nothing untouched, nothing that doesn’t need something to be done.”
“Well, what does your heart tell you to do?”
"My heart?" Angela looked up into Pete's eyes. He questioned his focus again and tried to remind himself not to lose himself in the brown, sugary swirl around her wide, dark pupils.
“When I was talking to Pastor Ruiz the other day, he quoted a verse to me. At the time, I blew it off, but since then, it’s been stuck in my head.”
“What was it?”
"A verse from Jeremiah. It went something like ‘Seek the welfare of the city, and in its welfare, you'll find yours'. I've been thinking about it with regard to The Grace Space."
“How so?”
“Well, I guess if I do the right thing for the people who need help, even though I have plenty of other things on my plate, I’ll still be taken care of.”
She nodded, then shook her head. “But you’re planning on leaving in just a few weeks.”
“I can still get things set up and do some good in the meantime. And so can you. One step at a time.”
"I don't know if I even know how to do that anymore. I'm so used to running in ten directions at once. I'm a mom, I'm a city council member, I've got responsibilities in our family business. I guess I wouldn't even know how to focus on one thing."
Angela tilted her head and looked up at the sky. Pete followed the direction of her gaze. He looked at the moon, hanging low and yellow out over the water. Then, that pull of instinct took over again as he touched his finger to Angela’s chin and gently urged it back down.
"What's the welfare of the city you need to seek?" Pete looked right into her eyes. He wanted to make sure she thought this one through, that she really understood she couldn't be all things to all people, no matter how much she wanted to be. "Your heart. What's it telling you to do?"
She leaned forward, bringing her face and her body close enough that a gulf breeze wouldn’t be able to flutter between them. At the tentative touch of her hand on his chest, Pete felt his fingers press automatically a little more firmly at the small of her back.
He waited, unsure of what to do. If her hand slid up to his shoulder, if she tilted her head just so, if she gave him the slightest encouragement in any one of a hundred different ways, he knew what his heart would tell him to do.
Or at least what he’d be encouraged to do by a powerful mix of adrenaline, a dash of hormones...and a shooting star overhead.
Pete caught a fleeting burst of movement out of the corner of his eye. “Did you see that?”
She shook her head and from her lips came a slightly breathless “No, what?”
“A shooting star. The meteor shower must be getting started.” Pete didn’t move his hand, didn’t take a step. “Make a wish.”
He knew what he was wishing for right now.
Angela took a deep breath in through her nose, then closed her eyes as she let it out. She smiled, and her cheeks rounded. Her brown eyelashes laid like a whisper along the curve of her skin. Pete couldn't have looked around for another careening star if he'd wanted to. Blood shot through his veins like the fastest meteor above them.
Angela wasn’t the first woman he’d ever wanted to kiss, and the stars overhead were not the first ones he’d ever wished on. But together, what they combined to make him feel—that was a first.
“I can’t ask what you wished for, can I?” Pete questioned.
The smile lingered on her face, and her eyes slowly opened like the dawn of the sun over the horizon. "It's like blowing out birthday candles. You can't share, or it won't come true."
“Well, we can’t have that, can we?”
Pete wasn’t about to share the thoughts in his head, either. He didn’t understand them all himself—he certainly didn’t expect Angela to, either.
And he didn’t want to scare her off. She and Celina needed a good place to stay, and there weren’t many options in Port Provident right now. That downstairs apartment was perfect for their needs. It had been hard enough to convince Angela to stay in the first place. He couldn’t give her any reasons to leave.
“No, no we can’t.” She slowly slid her hand off Pete’s chest and as she moved, the night breeze stirred and flowed in the new gap between them.
The moment disappeared like the trail behind a quick-moving star overhead.
“Did you wish for anything, Pete?”
He just couldn’t tell her how he’d studied her eyes, her smile, and the way his heart beat a little faster when her palm laid over it. “Not really. But I probably should have wished for a smooth opening for The Grace Space.”
“Two more days. You’ll be there for the opening, right?”
“Absolutely. I have a feeling your generosity and hard work is going to make a real difference in the welfare of this city in the weeks to come, Pete. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for jumping in and taking a few trucks of donated goods and some women who needed a medical checkup and out of those things, creating something that I think will be amazing.”
Pete turned and leaned on the rail of the deck, looking out toward where the ocean met the sand, only a few streets away. “Amazing might be too strong of a word.”
“I don’t think so. It’s exactly what the community needs right now. A place to come together, to see to basic needs and to feel safe. That to me is amazing. Meeting the needs of the people, right where they are. It’s why I love being on City Council, even though I feel like everything’s over my head right now.”
“Seeking the welfare of the city, huh?” A sense of peace filled Pete’s soul. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it felt good to know the hours he’d spent would really make a difference.
Maybe he had dismissed Pastor Ruiz’s verse and observations too easily the other day.
Maybe Pete wasn’t as numb as he’d thought.
