The minister smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, I told my folks I was going to ask you to dinner and they said the same thing,” he admitted. “But it would only be dinner and I thought I might risk a little scandal....”
Oh, good, I could go from being a shut-out in-law to a church scandal, Gia thought.
“But I’m really not ready,” she repeated honestly. “I’m just barely getting my being-single-again sea legs.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. I just thought I’d ask—no harm, no foul. I’m still with you a hundred percent on this project to help Larry and Marion.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” Gia pointed at the restroom sign. “I’m headed to wash my hands—I got into something sticky.” And had just avoided getting into something even stickier....
“Yeah, I think I’m ready for another cup of coffee myself,” he said, leaving Gia free to go into the bathroom.
Safely behind a closed door, she went straight to the row of three sinks, breathing a sigh of relief now that that was over.
It hadn’t been too awkward, she decided.
The minister had taken her rejection in stride, so she thought it would all be okay. She hoped it would all be okay. And at least she knew now that she hadn’t been imagining things—because even as she’d thought he might be showing her undue interest, she’d also wondered if she was flattering herself.
She washed her hands and took stock of her reflection in the mirror above the sinks. Dark eyes. Decent skin. An okay nose—not too prominent, not misshapen. A mouth she was afraid might be too wide, especially when she smiled. And dark, curly, curly—really curly—hair that she had to keep six inches below her shoulders so the weight of it would keep it from bushing out like a fright wig.
A neglectful husband—whose eye had begun to wander at the end of their marriage—and then a divorce had her making more assessments of her looks than she had since she was a teenager. And finding flaws. So even as she’d thought the pastor might have been showing her undue interest, she’d also been skeptical of the possibility that she could attract a man’s attention.
Of course, there was also the fact that she was only five feet three inches tall—that made her one of the few people the five feet five inch minister was taller than....
That was probably the real reason, she thought suddenly, doubting herself all over again.
Gia’s second sigh was a bit demoralized.
Oh, well. At least she could say she’d been asked.
She finished washing her hands and after drying them with a paper towel, she used the towel to brush wrinkles from the black slacks she’d worn to work today with her plain white blouse. Then she tossed the used paper towel in the trash and left the restroom.
Which was when she noticed someone new coming down the steps into the church basement.
A latecomer, was her initial thought.
Before she took a second look and recognized the man.
Unless she was mistaken, that was Derek Camden.
She’d never met him. But not only had the Bronsons’ dislike and resentment of the Camdens brought the well-known family to her attention whenever they were in the news or in magazine or newspaper articles, she also had some small knowledge of this specific Camden. He’d been involved for a brief time with her best friend Tyson’s cousin—a woman Tyson referred to as the family nutcase—and Gia had seen a snapshot of the two together.
Being reasonably sure that was who he was, she moved to intercept him before he got out of the stairwell and could be seen by anyone else.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a hurry, hoping not to draw the attention of the Bronsons.
“Umm...I don’t know. I heard through the grapevine that tonight was the night people were getting together to talk about helping Larry and Marion Bronson—that’s the group I’m looking for....”
“But you’re Derek Camden, aren’t you?” Gia said.
“I am. And you are...?”
“Not going to let you in here.”
His face erupted into a grin.
The face that she’d already noted was even more striking in person than it had been in the photograph. And he’d looked incredibly good in the photograph.
His hair was an even darker brown than hers was—verging on black—with just a touch of wave to the top that he left slightly longer than the short sides. His nose was the perfect length and shape—thin and straight. His mouth was just lush enough. He had the sexiest hint of a cleft in his chiseled chin. And nothing she’d heard about the Camden blue eyes had done his justice, because they were the vibrant blue of the delphiniums she loved to look out at through her kitchen window every morning.
And it all went with six foot two inches of muscular masculinity not at all hidden behind the tan slacks and cream-colored shirt he was wearing with his brown tie loosened at the open collar, and the suit coat he had hooked by a thumb over one impressively broad shoulder.
“You’re not going to let me in here?” he repeated, as if her thinking she could stop him amused him no end.
“No, I’m not,” Gia asserted. “It would ruin the Bronsons’ night.”
It only occurred to her as she said it that this man appeared to be about her own age and maybe didn’t know what had been done by his family generations before. That maybe he was there purely in response to word getting out, and had genuinely just come to help. Without knowing that his family was at the heart of the Bronsons’ hardship.
“I’m sorry, did you know that there’s bad blood between the Bronsons and your family?” she asked.
The alarm in her tone only made him laugh. “A lot of people don’t like the Camdens,” was all he admitted to.
“This is more than just—” she wasn’t sure how to put it so she repeated his words “—a lot of people not liking the Camdens on some sort of principal—”
“It’s okay. I came to help anyway,” he assured as if he didn’t view an aversion to his family as an obstacle.
“Yeah...well...it wouldn’t be okay with Larry and Marion, and I’m reasonably sure they wouldn’t take help from any Camden,” Gia said more bluntly because she was concerned that he wasn’t getting the picture. “And this may not look like it, but it’s a night out for them, they’re having a good time talking to people they haven’t seen in a while and I don’t want it wrecked for them....” She had no doubt the presence of a Camden would do just that.
“But I do want to help them,” Derek Camden said.
He was kind of stubborn. Great looking and amiable and certainly nothing more than tickled by her blockade, but difficult to persuade.
“They lost their hotel years ago to H. J. Camden. So maybe if you give them the Camden store that was built where their hotel was...” Gia suggested to get her point across. And to test his response and possibly learn whether or not he knew the history.
It worked, because he flinched charmingly and Gia had the impression that he knew exactly what she was talking about. “I don’t think I can do that. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to do something. And by the way, who are you?” he asked without any rancor.
“Gia Grant. I live next door to the Bronsons.”
“And you’ve taken them under your wing,” he guessed. “The guy who cuts my hair down on University had a donation jar. He said there was some little lady behind this. Is this whole thing your doing,