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Angela had to squint to keep the sun out of her eyes. She was actually holding her sunglasses in her hand, but Jennifer Parker was a very direct reporter, and if Angela put her shades on, Jennifer’s next line of questioning would probably be to ask what Angela had to hide.
And that answer was definitely nothing. In just a few minutes, her nephew Marco—pastor of La Iglesia de la Luz del Mundo—would join her, Pete, and Mayor Blankenship to cut the ribbon on The Grace Space. She’d been very excited when Jennifer Parker had been able to take a break from some of her other reporting duties to come and cover this event for the Port Provident Herald. The more people that knew about The Grace Space, the more people that could be helped by the resources provided here.
“So, how does The Grace Space integrate into everything that’s being sent to the island from other national non-profits,” Jennifer asked, flipping her record button on her cell phone to capture Angela’s answer.
“Well, Jennifer, this is a completely local initiative. It’s separate from things that those larger, national names are here doing. We’re grateful for everyone’s contribution to the support and recovery of Port Provident from Hurricane Hope. But The Grace Space is unique. It gives us an opportunity to distribute household goods and food that have been donated to area churches like La Iglesia from concerned groups all across the state. Plus, with the opening of the clinic area, we’re utilizing the human capital we have with our world-class medical center and medical school. There are students and residents, nurses and doctors who are in limbo with the current closure of Provident Medical, and this gives them the opportunity to use their unique skills to serve the community while the leadership at Provident Medical charts a plan to reopening. Finally, we’ve tapped into more community resources with social services workers and lawyers to staff a Q&A area where our citizens can come and ask questions and get answers as they navigate the paperwork and such that comes with the recovery process.”
“But why is this being run by La Iglesia, instead of being coordinated by a national organization or a government agency?” Jennifer moved the microphone end of her phone a little closer to Angela.
“Well, because everyone has a role to play in Port Provident’s recovery.” Angela searched for a better way to explain it than just a typical politician’s sound bite. “When you look at the stars, none of them individually illuminate the night sky. But when they all work together to shine in their individual areas, the effect is a wonderful thing. This project is like that. We’re all just trying to brighten the areas where we can best serve.”
As she said the words, Angela’s mind rewound forty-eight hours to when she stood on Pete’s deck under a thousand shooting stars. She’d replayed everything about that hour in her mind a hundred times. His words made total sense as she gave more thought to them. She couldn’t do everything, but with some focus, she’d be able to make what she could do the best and most effective it could be. That wasn’t not serving her constituents. It was best-serving her constituents by ensuring that what she did bring to them was a full effort, not a halfway job.
What made less sense to her was the jumble of feelings that thinking about Pete—not his words, just Pete himself—elicited in her when her thoughts strayed back to the deck and the stars and the feel of her hand in his and his hand on her waist, keeping her close.
“Angela?” Jennifer looked straight at her, with a stern look on her face. “Any updates?”
Great. She’d been caught. She could focus on one project at a time. But that project could not be Dr. Pete Shipley. The island needed her to do her best work for them. Not to fantasize about her new landlord and his gunmetal gray eyes.
“I’m sorry, Jennifer. What was that again?”
“The temporary housing. Do we have any updates on that?”
Good. She knew exactly where she stood on this subject. No confusion. No shooting stars. “We’ve made great progress. I hope that we will be able to make an announcement to the citizens of Port Provident by the end of this week. With ninety percent of homes in the city limits receiving some kind of damage, there is nothing that means more to me than getting our citizens out of shelters and hotels and into more stable housing situations where they can focus less on day-to-day survival and begin to move forward and recover.”
Jennifer punched the red button on the screen of her phone. “Thanks, Angela. Cara Perkins came with me today, too. I think she’s inside the building getting some photos. We’ll run this tomorrow.”
“Great. Do you have any plans to put it on the wire? I’d love to see Houston and even Dallas or Austin pick up the story and see that we’re grateful for the help and that we’re moving forward.”
"Sure. We've been putting everything we write that's hurricane-related out there. There's a lot on the wire these days, so I don't know if you'll see this particular story picked up, but it's worth a shot."
Angela nodded. “All we can do is keep trying to spread the word. There are still good stories to tell here. It’s not all doom and gloom.”
Jennifer walked off to interview some of the attendees from the community, and Angela decided it was time to make her way to the front door of the sanctuary of La Iglesia, which had been transformed into The Grace Space for the time being. It would remain that way until the church got the insurance paperwork straightened out and had the money to begin replacing furniture and equipment and rebuilding—or until The Grace Space outlasted donations and the community’s need.
A hand-painted sandwich board-style sign stood next to the door and read "Welcome to The Grace Space" in bright red letters, trimmed with a stripe of bold black around each individual letter. Someone had moved a few potted plants near the sign, as well—Angela had no idea where they'd found them—but the whole effect was cheery, and it made her smile.
Hopefully, it would bring a smile to the faces of those who needed what The Grace Space had to offer.
She walked through the door and stopped. The door swung shut and tapped her in the back. And still, she didn’t move.
More hand-painted signs had been hung from the ceiling, declaring what types of items could be found where: kitchen, bedroom, toys, clothes, food. To the right, curtains had been erected to separate the small clinic from the rest of the space. The pews and tables that had once been inside of La Iglesia were no longer able to be used for adequate seating for church members, but they had enough usefulness left in them to make displays for all the goods that had been donated.
The Grace Space looked better than Angela could have ever dreamed. It looked almost like a real store, with aisles and departments. Pete and his volunteers had created a space where people would not be embarrassed to shop—where they could feel like they were getting a hand up, not a hand out, and could feel the care and concern from those who had donated the goods and the time to help the residents of Port Provident rebuild their homes and their lives.
She felt a flash of grateful tears well up and a lump in her throat.
And then Angela looked to the left again, and her very breath was snatched from her lungs.
Dr. Pete Shipley leaned against a pole, dressed in a white coat and scrubs. He looked completely relaxed, but completely in charge. She’d never seen him dressed like a doctor before. But if she wasn’t careful, she’d get caught staring.
As she mentally chastised herself to do something—anything—but think of shooting stars and cornflower-blue scrubs, Pete noticed her, gave a wave, and took off in her direction at a quick jog.
“So? What do you think?”
The eager tone in his voice reminded her of Celina at Christmastime. All hope, all anticipation, all joy.
"It looks amazing. I was taking it all in. I can't believe how you've taken truckloads of random goods and some saltwater-soaked church furniture and turned it into this."
Pete quickly cocked one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Well, I can’t take all the credit. Some amazing folks from the church and the hospital have worked right alongside me.”
To underscore his point, four or five people milled around the aisles, straightening and making last minute touch-ups.
“So, are we ready to go cut a ribbon?” Pete gestured toward the door with one hand and touched his hand again to the small of her back with the other, gently guiding her.
Angela nodded, then looked up at the ceiling. She could have sworn she saw a shooting star in the church. It seemed so real that she was almost tempted to make another wish. Instead, she decided a simple prayer would do...but would God understand why she was praying about Pete Shipley and not the former pews full of donated merchandise?
The day had been long, but everything had been worth it. The Grace Space opened to many grateful hands, the clinic saw twenty-two patients needing basic wellness checks, and the mayor had expressed her thanks to Pete and the team for seeing a need and pulling together a solution so quickly. All in all, the knowledge that today had done real, tangible good for Port Provident tugged at his heart.
The jangle of a bell signaled the opening of the front door, which was strange because Pete was sure he'd locked it up more than half an hour ago when the last volunteer left. The only reason he was still inside was because he was trying to give himself a little more time to process the memories of the day and finish his notes from the clinic cases.
“The Grace Space will reopen at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” Pete turned in the metal chair at the back of the room where he’d been transcribing his notes.
A petite tornado with dark brown hair rushed across the concrete floor. He could barely believe his eyes. He’d seen Angela smile, comfort her daughter, and even share a laugh or two with friends, but he hadn’t seen this kind of enthusiasm since that first quick hug in his living room the night they first talked about the temporary housing situation issues and the first steps toward creating The Grace Space.
Pete stood up, took three steps in her direction, and then was tackled by the force of her momentum colliding into him.
Instantly, he felt the spark. Whatever electricity she brought with her was transferring to him.
And he wanted more.
His arms reflexively wrapped around her shoulders, and he knew it was more about keeping her close than steadying her after the bounce after her body crashed into his.
"We did it!" Her voice came out as a shout, and she threw her head back. The silk of her hair brushed his hands where they cupped the curve of her shoulder blades.
“Did what?”
“Everything is signed for the RV park. The first trailers will be moving in tomorrow. People can leave the shelters. They can have a place to call their own while they rebuild.” She gave a short jump. “Pete, you did it. Without your phone call to your friends, without making that connection, we wouldn’t have been able to pull this off so quickly. We were out of options. I don’t know what we would have done.”
She bounced again, and this time, Pete had ducked his head to look down at her. At the first feather-light touch of her lips on his, Pete felt the full shock of the electricity Angela had brought in the room with her.
He'd wanted more, and he'd gotten it.
And he wasn’t going to give it up.
Pete pulled his forearms in a little more, pressing Angela closer to him, signaling without a word that their collision was no accident. Instead of pulling back as he’d half-expected her to, she tilted her head and deepened the moment.
Losing himself in the whisper of her hair over his fingers and the hush of her breath as it mixed with his own, he forgot everything until he remembered one thing.
His last kiss with Anna.
At the shock of the memory, his fingers went limp and fell from Angela’s shoulders. She pulled back as the bond of contact was lost.
“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” Angela said.
Pete bit the inside of his lip as he listened to her apologize. She might not have intended it, but he had. When he’d felt that first spark as she fell against him, he’d wanted to know what it was like to kiss her. He’d been thinking about it since she placed her hand on his chest on the deck when they talked underneath a sky of blazing stars.
“No, really, it’s okay.” He didn’t know what to say beyond that. He didn’t want her to feel like she’d made a mistake, but there was no way he could tell her that the memory of the woman that cancer had snatched from him caused him to back away.
He didn't want to cause awkward second-guessing—she still lived in his studio apartment, and there was no question they would run into each other. They still had The Grace Space project. And there was the connection on the temporary housing location as well. Everything needed to stay just as it was.
Speaking of all that, another question popped into his mind. "Are you going to move to the temporary housing space now?"
He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know the answer, but he was grateful for the distraction from the thoughts of Anna.
“I think so. I have a group of constituents who are on the list for the first round of trailers, so that will put me back in a location where I’m accessible to them.” She shifted her weight slightly onto her left foot. “Celina and I are very grateful for your hospitality in the little apartment, but it is way out there on the east end of the island. I should probably be closer in town, closer to my district.”
Pete nodded. “Oh, absolutely.”
He didn’t feel absolute about anything right now. Five minutes ago, he’d been on top of the world with the success of The Grace Space’s first day. Now, he was struggling with memories of the past and feelings he couldn’t name about the immediate future.
“There’s a community dinner tomorrow night at Huarache’s—you know, Gloria’s parents’ restaurant. You’re practically a resident of the La Missión neighborhood, now that you’ve spent so much time here at La Iglesia and have opened The Grace Space. You should come. I know a lot of people appreciate what you've done here and would like to thank you."
He felt a tickle at the top curve of his ears and hoped they weren’t turning red. “No thanks necessary. I did what anyone would do.”
“No you didn’t, Pete. You did exactly what you would do. You had the time, but you also had the contacts to pull this off. And you have a heart for community-centered work, or you wouldn’t be counting down the days until that medical mission sends you off to some corner of the world. No one else could have pulled this off like you did, in the amount of time it took you to do it.” She raised an arm, hesitated slightly, then patted his forearm. “Marco says that you’re La Iglesia’s Esther. You were sent here specifically ‘for such a time as this’.”
He didn’t know about that. He remembered Esther from Sunday School lessons as a kid. She saved a nation. He’d organized donated cookware and checked some blood pressure. He’d done what anyone would have done in the same situation.
Wouldn’t they have?
One thing he did know was the room grew uncomfortably quiet after Angela slipped out the door. The gentle whirr of a donated window air conditioning unit was the only thing between him and a lot of thoughts he’d rather not think.
It was time to go home. Past time. Of course, home was now where Angela lived right under where he walked. At least for now.
He ducked back through the curtains that made the door to the clinic space to retrieve the bags he’d brought with him this morning. When he walked back out into the main sanctuary area that now made up the store, Pete saw he was not alone.
“Buen trabajo today, Pedro. Really good job. When I asked for your help in bringing some order to all these donations, I never would have envisioned this. It’s just incredible—just what our community needs.” Marco looked squarely at Pete, scanning his face. “But you’re not happy. You’re troubled. Did something not go how you’d planned today?”
What a loaded question.
But there was no way he could answer Marco truthfully. They'd gotten to know each other while setting up The Grace Space and Pete felt comfortable in the pastor's presence. He was just a genuinely good guy—he saw the best in everything and everyone.
But Angela was his aunt—even though she was actually younger than Marco. You couldn’t just tell a guy you kissed his aunt and started thinking about your fiancée who died.
That would be the conversational equivalent of watching a patient flatline.
He decided it would be in everyone's best interest to wave it off, to deflect.
“Long day, Marco. One of those days that was all over the map.” That was accurate. All over the map was certainly the best way Pete could describe the thoughts in his head right now.
Marco crossed the room and sat down on one of the chairs close to Pete. “All the days lately have been long, Pedro. But that’s not what I see in your eyes. Something’s bothering you.”
“You should consider medical school, Marco. You’ve got a bedside manner that could get all sorts of information out of patients.”
The pastor rested his elbows on his knees. "It's a useful skill for pastors too. I guess you could call it pew-side manner."
That made Pete chuckle. "That's probably very true. But what do you do when you just can't explain something? For most of what I do, there are answers. Especially the last few years while I've been managing the birthing center. We don't have high-risk patients—we make sure that they are under the care of obstetricians who manage their care through the hospital model. In my whole time there, we've had a handful of non-emergency transfers, like when a mother has decided she'd rather get an epidural or she's been in labor for too long and isn't progressing and needs a drug like Pitocin, which requires the monitoring capabilities of a hospital. But mostly, I've found that the human body knows how to give birth. It's an instinctive, biological process."
“But whatever’s on your mind isn’t a textbook case, Pedro?”
Pete lowered himself into the closest chair and faced Marco. Maybe he could talk to him after all. If he just kept it vague, perhaps he could get it off his chest and go home without fear of running into Angela as he walked up the stairs to his part of the house.
Yeah, he'd keep it vague. He didn't have to bring Marco's aunt into it at all.
"Something from my past has come up, and I wasn't expecting it." Pete sat on the edge of his chair. He couldn't get comfortable, in spite of his resolve to not give too many details.
“The past is powerful, Pedro. A lot of people will tell you to leave it there—ignore it, put it in a box. Move on.” His hands moved in a sweeping motion, illustrating the point. “But I don’t think that is what we’re meant to do.”
Pete looked down. He noticed his feet. Since Anna died, his unofficial motto had been to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep moving. Keep going. It gave his mind a fairly regular stream of new experiences and actions to focus on.
“Moving on is all I know, Pastor. “
“But you’ve got to be moving to something, not just from something. Otherwise, you’re running a marathon with no plan. You’ll never reach the end, hermano.” The window unit rattled to life again and gave a punctuating squeal. “So, what are you running from?”
“Anna.” Her name fell off his lips with a thud. He’d thought about her, but he hadn’t actually spoken of her in years. To say her name again sounded unfamiliar and clumsy. “My fiancée. She died of cancer.”
Pete closed his eyes and leaned his head back. That answer was anything but vague. But he was tired. Tired of running. Tired of fearing the memory of the woman he had once loved.
“First, you’re not alone. Losing someone we love means losing the vision of the future we’d planned with them.” He reached out and patted Pete on the knee with a simple, reassuring touch. “But in Second Corinthians, we’re reminded that when the old things pass away, Christ makes all things new. God doesn’t just leave you with the old, with the memories. When I counsel people in situations like yours, I remind them that love is a gift. That person taught you how to love, how to feel. And in Heaven, they are experiencing eternal love. Love here on earth is an imperfect replica of God’s love in Heaven, but now that your Anna has experienced the fullness of love in Heaven, do you think she would want you to live without any love here?”
Like a grub coming from underground to be exposed to the harsh light of the sun, Pete was taken aback. He squinted.
“But what happens to what we shared? I asked her to marry me. I was ready to take the vows, to say I was going to love her forever.”
Marco raised one hand. "That's not what the vows say, Pedro. I've performed a wedding or two. The vows say ‘in sickness and in health, until death do us part.' You loved her through the sickness, and then death parted you. But hermano, even when a log burns in your fireplace, the evidence of it is still there in the form of ashes. Love can’t be erased, only transformed. If you love someone else, it doesn’t wipe away your love for Anna. It changes it and makes it into something else. It never goes away because she’s the one who taught you that you could love someone through anything—sickness, health, even death.”
“Love never fails,” Pete said, barely above a mumbled whisper.
“So you do know what Paul says about it.” Marco came to his feet. “He’s not wrong. We’re at a time, Pedro, where we will see this whole island transformed by the rebuilding that will come our way after Hurricane Hope. But we’ll still be Port Provident. The same will be true when you come to the point in your life where you’re going to reconstruct that future you once saw for yourself.”
Pete stood, and this time he noticed his eyes were wide open. He didn’t flinch as he digested the pastor’s words. “It’s like the first law of thermodynamics. We can’t destroy energy, only change it.”
“We are told that when it’s all said and done, only three will remain, mi hermano: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest is always love. Love may change, but it always remains.”
Huarache’s Restaurant, the legendary Gulfview Boulevard Mexican restaurant owned by Carlos and Juanita Garcia, was a sight for many sore eyes in Port Provident. Angela had to park almost three blocks from the restaurant. As she and Celina got closer, Angela could hear the strum of a guitar and the brassy toot of a trumpet. They’d found a mariachi band. Now she knew this was definitely a celebration everyone could enjoy. Good food, good music, good friends.
Hopefully, this would be a night to lift Port Provident’s spirits.
She knew her own needed a little lifting as well. As excited as she was to see the first trailer for the temporary housing neighborhood come over the causeway to be installed at the RV park, and as warm as the community’s reception to The Grace Space had been, a tug of regret had not left her heart since she walked out the door of The Grace Space after that kiss with Pete.
She hadn’t seen him since then. Not at the house, in town, or at The Grace Space. And she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was avoiding her. She hadn’t kissed another man since David walked out of her life before Celina was born, and judging by Pete’s can’t-get-away-fast-enough reaction, it needed to be a long time before she kissed anyone again.
Like forever.
She kicked a rock from the middle of the sidewalk, channeling her frustration. This was why she stayed focused. This was why she didn’t get distracted by emotions. This was why she put her trust only in herself, her daughter and her God.
Other people would just let her down when she was least expecting it.
She hadn’t expected much from kissing Pete. It had been a completely spontaneous, unplanned reaction to her happiness at seeing so many pieces of the puzzle fall into place that afternoon. But she certainly hadn’t expected him to pull back like he’d been given a glass of bitter medicine to drink.
The only bitter one here was her, though. Angela definitely felt bitterness over giving in to her impulse. Lesson learned.
The sound of the festive band grew louder with every step she and Celina took. She needed to shake out all these thoughts from her head. Tonight was a celebration for her friends and neighbors, a party thrown by two pillars of their community to come together in a spirit of survival, gratitude, and moving forward.
And with that in mind, she was going to move forward and put behind her that momentary lapse of judgment and all the questions and self-inflicted embarrassment caused by thinking about it again and again and again.
“Do I smell fajitas, Mama? I’m hungry! Let’s go faster!”
Angela definitely couldn't argue with her enthusiasm and tugged at Celina's hand. The two of them took off in an awkward sprint, and it didn't take long for her daughter to pull ahead and drag Angela along behind.
As of right now, the only thing she was leaving behind was her encounter with Pete yesterday and all the questions that had popped up in her mind since.
“Querida!” Juanita Garcia stood at the open front door with outstretched arms, and as usual, a term of endearment for everyone who walked up. She knelt down to Celina’s level and planted a big kiss on the little girl’s cheek. “Que bella! And who is this?”
“Brownie the Bear. Pete let me take him home from The Grace Space.” Celina proudly showed off her new furry friend.
“Ah, mucho gusto, Cafecito el Oso,” Juanita expressed her pleasure at meeting Brownie. “Oh, I’d heard about the great job Dr. Shipley did at transforming La Iglesia. Is he coming tonight?”
Since Hurricane Hope came ashore, not having all the answers had become pretty much standard operating procedure for Angela. But this one...she knew the answer to this question. "No, he's not."
“Oh, well, too bad.” Juanita waved Angela and Celina inside. “The food is in the corner, the band is on the patio. Help yourself and have a good time. Tonight is a night for smiles. We’ve made it through the worst. Good days are ahead.”
Immediately, Celina noticed a group of her friends from church and asked if she could introduce Brownie the Bear to them. Angela agreed as long as Celina stayed near her aunt Emmy, who was close to the gathering of girls. As her daughter walked toward them, Angela took a few steps in the other and headed toward the porch.
There was a coolness riding on the gulf breeze tonight, a welcome relief from the higher-than-normal humidity that had filled their air in the wake of Hurricane Hope. The mariachi band played Cielito Lindo, one of Angela’s favorite Mexican folk songs, and she found herself humming along with the song’s ay yi yi refrain.
“’Canto y no llores’—that means ‘sing and don’t cry,’ right?” An unmistakable voice came from over her left shoulder.
So much for leaving the things she’d rather forget behind. The living, breathing embodiment of them was standing right behind her.
“It does.” Angela didn’t know what else to do besides to answer his question with as little extra explanation as possible.
"Then why do you look so sad? Your shoulders are slumped, and you're staring out at the waves."
Angela turned around with a small push of emotion that came out as a sarcastic laugh. “Well, because I’m still trying to figure out why I can’t shake the feeling that you’re avoiding me.”
Pete sandwiched in next to her along the porch rail. “I was.”
“Okay.” Just when she thought the whole mess couldn’t get any more awkward, Angela realized it could.
“But I was wrong. Will you accept my apology?” Pete turned his head toward her.
“Can you tell me why, though?” She knew she needed to accept the apology, but she also knew she had no interest in setting herself up to get burned again.
Pete paused for a moment. “I can. But that’s a story best told over a plate of Huarache’s fajitas. Can we get a plate and then talk?”
Angela turned away from the soothing roll of the waves. “Sure. Most things are better with Carlos Garcia’s fajitas.”
"That's the truth. After you." Pete stretched out an arm toward the dining room, and Angela slipped through the crowd and to the buffet line set up near the kitchen. She made a plate for herself and one for Celina, then brought her daughter's over to the table in the corner where the little girl sat, talking animatedly with two friends and some of her cousins.
“Do you want to go sit back out on the patio?” Pete gestured toward the far door as he held a bottle of Mexican soda. “It seems less crowded out there.”
“Less crowded, yes, but far more musical. The band is still out there. I’m not sure I’ll be able to hear you over La Cucaracha,” she said as the band began to play the spirited tune.
“You’re probably right. Okay, come with me.” Pete began to weave through the crowd. Angela followed in his wake, pausing every few steps to return a wave or acknowledge a greeting from a friend or constituent.
Pete waited at the main door for Angela to catch up, then led the way out to the parking lot.
“Where are we going, Pete?” Angela looked around. Some folks had spilled out to the sidewalk and the curb to eat since the restaurant was near capacity, but Pete had already walked far past the last outlier.
"Right here." He stopped in front of the last vehicle parked in the lot, placed his plate and drink inside the bed of the truck, then dropped the tailgate on his dusty black pickup truck. "A tailgate tabletop. You can still hear the music, and we're not too far from Celina and your sister, but it's a little more private this way."
Private. She’d asked him for the reason why he’d kept out of her way since their impromptu kiss, but now her stomach did a small flip as she wondered what exactly the story would be, for them to need to come away from the rest of the crowd.
She set her plate in the middle of the tailgate and balanced a Styrofoam cup full of iced tea beside it, then turned around and boosted herself up.
“If I’d known there was going to be tailgating involved tonight, I probably would have re-thought wearing this sundress.”
Pete settled on the tailgate with a practiced ease, and then she felt the weight of his gaze as he looked over her cotton dress, from the lace-trimmed hem that brushed her ankles to the smocked-style top embroidered with a blue flowered design.
“No, I’d say the sundress was a great choice.”
His words were said in earnest, and Angela felt her stomach tingle as it did a small flip again. She gave a slight inward smile at the thought of Pete appreciating how she looked, but at the same time, it didn't match up with his most recent actions.
Now was as good a time as any to follow up on that, she supposed. She pretended she was back at a City Council meeting, asking questions about the issues at hand—it made it easier to dive right in.
“So you said you were wrong earlier and that you’d tell me why. I admit I’m curious.”
Pete finished the swallow he’d just taken of his Mexican cola, then sat the curvy glass bottle with the pale green tint back down near his plate.
"Well, for starters, thanks for accepting my apology. The answer is that my reaction yesterday had nothing to do with you, although I know that sounds like I'm giving you a line." He paused and turned slightly, so he looked across the street at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico lapping at the shore.
"When I came to Port Provident a few years ago, I came here looking for a fresh start after the death of my fiancée, Anna. She had cancer and died three months after the diagnosis. It tore me up. And I've never even given a woman a second glance or a second thought since then, until I got to know you."
Angela’s stomach stopped doing flips. She didn’t know what kind of confession she’d been expecting, but this bombshell was not it.
Pete kept his eyes locked toward the waves. "I can't lie, I think you're an amazing person, an amazing mom, and an amazing fighter for this island. And I know what happened was a case of excitement and emotion coming together—but I guess that's what most kisses start out like. I haven't even looked at another woman since Anna died, much less kissed one, for any reason. And my reaction surprised me."
“Your reaction?” Angela found it intriguing that he was just as surprised as she’d been by his complete shut down in the middle of The Grace Space.
“I didn’t want to let you go,” he said simply. “And I felt disloyal to Anna’s memory.”
“Oh.” Angela couldn’t think of anything more eloquent to say. All of her skilled questioning and speaking skills that she used up on the dais at Port Provident City Council meetings had been rendered completely useless by Pete’s honest confession. “I understand.”
Pete looked toward Angela but didn't turn his body in her direction. "I didn't, and that was the problem. It wasn't you. It was me."
She’d said she understood, but the more she thought about it, the less she knew what to say.
"I'm probably making a mess of this, but what I'm trying to say, Angela, is that I don't want to avoid you. I consider you a friend now, probably more than that if I'm being honest. And even though I didn't do a good job of showing it, I care about you. I care about Celina." His shoulders lost the iron-straight posture they'd been holding, and he shifted on the tailgate to finally face Angela. "And maybe you might let me have a do-over one of these days, if the time and place were right."
When he placed his hand tentatively on hers, she glanced in the sky to see if there were any more shooting stars.
Angela let out the breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding. Since they’d met, she’d certainly come to care about Pete, to value his opinion—and she knew that’s why his reaction hurt so much. She’d had more than a few bumps in the road of her life, but in the end, they’d all worked out for the best. Perhaps this was another one of those bumps. Perhaps this was one time where she needed to quit being a City Councilwoman, full of questions and research and plans, and to just let herself be a woman.
“If the time and place is right,” she said with a smile.
