He was the first to admit he hadn’t handled it very well. What could he say? He was a guy, and the attention of pretty ladies went straight to his head. Being as inexperienced as he was in the world of women, he knew he’d made quite a few mistakes along the way.
How was he supposed to know that after two or three dates, a girl would assume that they were dating exclusively and that he wasn’t seeing anyone else? He hadn’t even been looking for a serious relationship—not then, anyway—despite the impression he’d apparently given. He’d quickly learned that women had certain ideas in their heads, and they weren’t very forgiving when he didn’t catch their unspoken implications.
Which he rarely did. He didn’t know how to guess how a woman thought. He hadn’t known then, and he certainly didn’t know now.
No, he’d had enough of all that, thank you very much. Perhaps that was why the idea of finding someone outside Serendipity sounded so appealing to him. Someone who didn’t know what he’d been like as a kid. Someone unaware of his recent screw-ups in the love department.
If he left Serendipity, he could reinvent himself into anything he wanted to be. A tough guy or a dashing charmer. Sensitive or daring. It was a heady notion. But there was more to it than that. He truly felt called to make a difference on a scale he could never achieve in his small hometown. He wanted to get involved in difficult and often perilous stateside mission work, perfect for an adrenaline junkie like him who wanted to be part of an organization that ministered to people, body and soul.
At times he even dared to imagine the possibility of having a classy, incredible woman working at his side—a strong, independent, caring, Christian woman ready and able to both handle the worst and pray for the best.
It wasn’t completely beyond the realm of possibility that this woman was Veronica Jayne. In their emails, her dreams and future plans and goals matched his, and their personalities melded perfectly, each playing off the other’s strengths.
But that was online.
Reality? Well, that was probably nothing more than empty space. Would he even know her if he passed by her on the street? Would they connect on that kind of level?
He was almost certainly grasping at straws. If anything ever did happen between them, and that was a big if, Veronica Jayne eventually would learn everything about him—including his past, which he was still ashamed to think about. Then there was the fact that he had perpetual grease under his nails from working as a mechanic. And the fact that he lived in a miniscule Texas town—he had the impression, though she’d never stated outright, that she lived in a big city.
If he took her home, his mother would no doubt bring out his baby pictures and his yearbook, which would only serve to further humiliate him. One look and Veronica Jayne would discover what a gawky, pimple-covered youth he’d been. Too tall for his skinny physique and all elbows and knees.
He wasn’t sure he was ready for that. Anyway, he was getting way ahead of himself. They’d never met in person. Who knew if they’d even like each other when that time came, much less in any kind of romantic capacity? He must be getting soft in the head.
The moment he rounded the corner onto his parents’ cul-de-sac, he noticed the black truck parked in his parents’ driveway. The back end was loaded with red bricks and multi-colored rocks of various shapes and sizes and bags upon bags of soil and fertilizer. It wasn’t an old truck, but it wasn’t a new one either. It had some wear—definitely a sensible working vehicle. And though it looked vaguely familiar, he couldn’t immediately put a name to the owner. He was fairly certain he hadn’t serviced it at the auto shop recently, yet he could picture the vehicle in his mind, sans contents. So where did he know it from?
One way to find out.
He heard someone singing before he even reached the front porch. More telling, it was a female singing, or humming rather, and it definitely wasn’t his good, old-fashioned country mother, unless she’d developed a sudden propensity for something that sounded suspiciously like classical music to Ben’s untrained ears.
Instead of approaching the front door, his curiosity led him around the side of the house to see whose pretty, richly husky alto laced the air with Beethoven, or Bach or whatever it was.
When he got his first glance of her, he nearly stumbled with surprise.
Vee Bishop.
What was she doing here? She hadn’t mentioned visiting his parents when they’d been talking the prior evening.
She had her back to him, her slender figure accentuated as she stood on tiptoe on the top rung of a stepladder, precariously reaching for a flowerpot that dangled just out of her reach on a hook next to the patio door. She thought she was alone, as evidenced by the fact that she was humming aloud to the tune of the small mp3 player she had clipped to her belt.
“Beethoven?” he called. With his mind busy creating and discarding reasons why Vee might be in his parents’ backyard, he realized only after he’d spoken that she couldn’t have seen him approach and that the sound of his voice might startle her. She’d managed to unhook the basket with the tips of her fingers, but she didn’t have the basket firmly in her grasp and she overreached her mark at the sound of his voice. Wavering in a futile attempt to balance herself, she put one hand out to grasp for the wall, but nothing was there to stop her from falling backward. She squeaked in dismay, and her arms flailed wildly as she attempted to right herself against the ladder.
Ben acted instinctively, darting forward to sweep Vee into his arms before she hit the pavement. He barely felt the weight of her frame as he protectively flexed his biceps to curl her into the safety of his embrace, but he was intensely aware of the moment she wrapped her arm around his neck. The hook of the hanging basket she’d managed to hold on to dug deeply into his shoulder. The sensation didn’t register as pain, maybe because his adrenaline was so high. Her free palm rested against his chest, directly over his rapidly beating heart. He wondered if she could feel the pounding staccato rhythm of his pulse.
Crazy woman. What had she been thinking? It was a good thing for her that he’d arrived when he did. He hoped she realized that he had barely averted a disaster.
She could have had broken bones. Been knocked unconscious. Suffered a concussion. He could easily tick a dozen frightening scenarios off on his fingers.
He didn’t immediately release her, giving them both time to get their bearings. For a moment she just stared up at him, her cheeks flushed a pretty crimson. Her dark eyes first flared with surprise and then simply sparkled with what Ben suspected was mirth, though he couldn’t imagine what she considered to be funny in this situation.
“Mozart,” she informed him, wriggling out of his grasp as if she only now realized that he was still holding her up. She stood to her full height, but even so, the top of her head didn’t reach Ben’s shoulder. “And you should be ashamed of yourself, sneaking up on a person that way. You nearly scared the life out of me. I could have really been hurt there!”
“I didn’t sneak,” he responded, trying to keep his jaw from dropping. Why was she chewing him out? She should be eternally grateful for his efforts on her behalf. “What I did was save you from a major catastrophe just now. You should be thanking me, not railing on me. And you should know better than to stand on the top rung of a ladder. It’s dangerous.”
“It’s just a step stool,” she rejoined with a scowl. Now that was a familiar expression from her, especially combined with her backing away from where his outreached hand tried to offer her some support. Although she’d landed in his arms and had not—thanks to him—taken a digger on the ground, she brushed off her jeans as if she’d hit the dirt on both knees.
“Maybe,” he conceded. “But you’re still begging for an accident by name. In case you’re not aware of the rules,