An Unlikely Match (4 page)

Asher stared at her retreating figure for a long moment before he shut his eyes. No, no, he must not think about her…uh, about what she’d said. What had she said?

The door in the waiting area opened and closed, signaling that she had left the premises. He sagged against the door frame, shaking his head and sucking in huge drafts of air.

What on earth was going on? He had sworn off the fairer sex, and he’d been perfectly happy in his solitary existence. Besides, he couldn’t be attracted to Ellie Monroe. Not only was she now officially a client, she was twenty-three, too impulsive, too talkative, too…everything!

Especially too pretty.

Why, the woman was downright dangerous. Oh, she might look as innocent as lambs and sweet enough to decay teeth, but that woman was poisonous to the male population, and henceforth, he told himself sternly, he would not forget that fact. He would be on his guard—stern, disciplined, wise—just as a man in his position ought to be.

But something told him that being on his guard might not be enough to combat the charms of Ellie Monroe.

Mentally kicking herself with every step, Ellie descended the stairs outside Asher’s office to the ground floor below. She loved these old art deco buildings, but
she saw nothing of her surroundings as recriminations piled on, crowding out everything else.

Could she have made a bigger fool of herself? She should have realized that Asher was not handling this case for the money. He was doing a favor for his aunts. Most likely, he would not have taken on the situation at all except at their behest. Informing him of her and her grandfather’s limited means to pay had probably even insulted Asher, and that was the last thing she’d wanted.

To make matters even worse, she had shown her hand. He knew that she wanted him to drop or stall the settlement and why—or partly why. Hopefully, he would be satisfied with that.

The saddest revelation of all, though, had to do with Ash himself. The very idea that he had given up on romance broke her heart, for him and for all the women out there who begged God on their knees for such a man, herself included. As a Chatam, he would be a responsible, fiercely loyal and faithful Christian husband, much like her beloved grandfather. Ellie liked to think that her own father would have been such a man, too, but Chart Monroe had died in a helicopter crash while on a training mission with his military unit when she was only ten years old. His death had driven Ellie’s unhappy grandmother into bitterness and her spoiled mother into paroxysms of self-pity.

Ellie had soon learned that just as she could not depend on her mother or grandmother to help her through her father’s loss, neither could she make up for his absence, so she had clung to her good-natured grandfather. Not yet thirteen when her querulous grandmother had suddenly died, Ellie had naturally turned to him for support and comfort during their mutual time of grief,
and that, her mother had declared before packing up and disappearing, was just where she belonged.

Her mother’s abandonment had hurt, but leaving Ellie with her grandfather was perhaps the greatest kindness that Sonia had ever given her daughter. Ellie owed so much to that wonderful old man. For years, he had bravely smiled in the face of criticism and coldness from his wife. He had been as devastated as she by their son’s passing, perhaps more so, but somewhere along the way, Kent Monroe had learned to make his own happiness. He had taught Ellie to do the same. Just once, though, Ellie wanted her grandfather to actually have his heart’s desire, and she wasn’t about to apologize for that, not even to Ash, who had obviously allowed his own disappointment to warp his judgment about such things.

Pushing through a heavy glass door, Ellie stepped out onto the sidewalk of the downtown square that framed the Buffalo Creek courthouse. Pausing to toss on her jacket, she spied Lance Ripley coming toward her.

She had done her best to avoid Lance after their date on Valentine’s Day. It was not an easy task. As coworkers, they taught in the same building, but while she loved teaching and enjoyed children, Lance, she had discovered, despised both. He had told her bluntly that he would continue to teach only until one of his unlikely inventions sold, the latest of which was a backpack containing an air bag. Ellie shuddered at the idea of school hallways filled with exploding air bags as children did what came naturally, bumping, shoving and jabbing each other.

Lance called out to her even as she quickly turned in the opposite direction. “Ellie!”

Sighing inwardly, she resigned herself and put on
a smile before slowly facing him. He strode up to her, hunching inside his rumpled trench coat. His tall frame seemed to fold in upon itself as if unable to support the shock of wheat-blond hair that sprouted from his scalp, too thick to part or comb down without a proper styling. One of those men who could have been truly handsome with just a bit of attention to the details of grooming, he had once struck her as a bundle of possibilities. Now, he represented every dating disappointment she’d ever experienced.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you.” The pale blue eyes that pinned her from beneath the line of a shaggy unibrow seemed oddly calculating, but she forced a tight smile anyway.

“Hello, Lance. I’ve been, um, busy.”

“Not too busy for me, though, I’m sure,” he insisted, sliding an arm across her shoulders.

Ellie stepped aside, frowning at his familiarity. They’d shared a single date, for pity’s sake, and she’d regretted it long before their dinners had arrived. He’d asked her out a full week in advance, and she’d been happy to accept. She’d dressed carefully, twisting up her hair and donning one of her favorite dresses, only to find that he hadn’t even bothered to make reservations. After driving all over town, they’d wound up eating burgers in a joint frequented primarily by loud teenagers while he droned on and on about his invention. She’d avoided his good-night kiss after that and his calls ever since.

“Actually,” she told him, “this is not a good time. I’ve got to run. Sorry.” She attempted to step away, but his hand shot out and fastened around her arm.

“Now, hang on,” he said, frowning.

Ellie glanced around meaningfully, but Lance seemed
not to realize that they were on the verge of a very public scene. “Please let go of me.”

“You’ve been avoiding me for the past week or more,” he accused, as if she had not realized that fact, “and I want to talk.”

“Lance, I don’t have time for this,” she began firmly, but he cut her off.

“Those old ladies you live with, the Chatams, they might be interested in investing in my safety pack. I didn’t get a chance to meet them last time, so I thought I could come by sometime soon and do that.”

He’d picked her up at Chatam House for their date. Thankfully, the Chatam sisters had been out at the time; otherwise, he might have hit them up for investment funds right then and there! Alarmed to think that he would try to use their tenuous connection to importune the Chatams, Ellie glared up at him.

“Absolutely not! My grandfather and I are just guests at Chatam House. We’ve only been here for a couple of weeks. I wouldn’t feel comfortable having my own company come over.”

“Huh,” he said, as if the niceties of such things had never occurred to him. “But I’m not really company. We’re dating.”

“No, Lance, we’re not,” she stated flatly, drawing herself up straight. “And I really have to go.”

Scowling, he gave her arm a shake. At that precise moment, Asher pushed through the door of the building and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Barely glancing at Lance Ripley, he walked over, calmly took Ellie’s arm in his, breaking Lance’s grasp, and turned her toward her grandfather’s pharmacy.

“Excuse us,” he said over his shoulder, propelling her down the sidewalk. “Mr. Monroe is waiting.”

Stunned, Ellie glanced back at Lance. He brought his hands to his hips and glowered but did not seem inclined to follow. “I’ll phone you,” he called, as if that alone would prompt her to take his calls when she had not done so thus far.

“You can try,” she muttered, swinging her smile up at Asher. She couldn’t help a tiny thrill of appreciation. It really was rather gallant, the way he had swooped in and swept her away.

My hero,
she thought with a melodramatic, inward sigh. If only she could believe he’d meant something personal by it. But of course, given his feelings about romance, that was out of the question. Entirely.

O
f all the stupid, ill-advised things to do!
Asher scolded himself sternly, all but shoving Ellie Monroe along at his side. He glanced down at her worshipful gaze and inwardly groaned. If he was not mistaken, the girl had a crush on him already, and he had just added fuel to that fire. Nothing could come of it, of course. He was old enough to be…well, fifteen years her senior.

A decade and a half.

Good grief, he’d been learning to drive when she was born! But did that stop him from riding to her rescue like a knight of old? Nooo.

Yet, what else could he have done? He had come down the stairs intending to turn to the back of the building and walk right out into the alley where, as usual, he had parked his SUV. Then he’d caught sight of Ellie and that man through the front glass. Within moments, Asher had realized that the idiot had put his hands on her and that she was not particularly welcoming the familiarity. He hadn’t really thought at all after that. Before he’d even known what he intended to do, he was doing it.

“One of your ‘first dates,’ I assume?” Asher muttered.

“A first and
only
date,” she answered.

“He seemed anxious for a repeat performance.”

“But not for the reason you may think.”

“Oh?”

“He wants your aunts to invest in one of his inventions.”

Asher stopped short of the corner and looked down at her. “Inventions?”

“A backpack with an air bag.” He blinked slowly at that. She made an expression somewhere between a grimace and a grin. “To guard against pedestrian accidents.”

“Pedestrian accidents,” he muttered, shaking his head. Glancing back over his shoulder, he ushered her forward once more. “Doesn’t exactly take a hint, does he?”

“He’s still there?”

“Afraid so.”

Thankfully, the light changed before they reached the corner. Asher all but pushed her across the street, and they wound up in front of the door to her grandfather’s pharmacy. The lettering on the front window read, “Monroe’s Modern Pharmacy and Old-Fashioned Soda Fountain.”

“Thank you,” she said.

Nodding, he glanced back down the street, frowning. “Maybe I’d better have a word with our inventor.”

She caught him by the arm before he could turn away. “Uh, why don’t I treat you to a root beer float, instead. He’ll leave after we go inside.”

Asher lifted his eyebrows. “A root beer float? I
haven’t had a root beer float since…actually, I’m not sure I’ve ever had a root beer float.”

“Well, it’s about time you did, then,” she told him, pulling him through the door with her.

He went along because, really, what else was he going to do? Dig in his heels like a recalcitrant four-year-old?

Redolent of peppermint, the shop spread out in a straightforward manner, with a single cash register and short counter at the front perpendicular to the door. Rows of products ran horizontally through the center of the store, providing a clear line of vision from the glassed-in prescription counter at the back.

“Hey, sugar! Be with you in a minute,” Kent Monroe’s gravelly voice called out.

“It’s okay, Grandpa,” Ellie answered, tugging Asher toward the candy-striped counter along the far wall. “We’re going to have a treat.”

“Help yourselves.”

It had been ages since Asher had parked himself on one of those small, round stools at the soda bar. He usually visited one of the specialty coffee shops on the square these days. Something about those red vinyl-covered seats edged in chrome and fixed atop a stationary metal pole made him feel silly. Still, he sat when Ellie motioned him to it. She rounded the corner and slid behind the counter.

“Now, let’s see,” she said, looking around her, “maybe you’d prefer something other than a float. Say, a cream fizz or a sarsaparilla?”

“Really?” he said, leaning his elbows on the counter. “A sarsaparilla? No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, then?”

“Maybe you’d better choose.”

She smiled. “A float it is, but a very special one.”

He watched doubtfully as she squirted a measure of dark syrup into a tall metal cup, added a firm scoop of vanilla ice cream, blended the ingredients and then divided the resulting sludge between two tall, fluted goblets. She flooded the goblets with cola from one of the fountain taps, forming an impressive lather on each. Plucking two straws from a container, she shoved them into the goblets and carried both around the counter, where she took a seat next to Asher, facing backward.

“A cappuccino root beer float,” she announced, plunking his down in front of him. Hanging her elbow on the counter, she took a long pull on her straw then drawled in a thick, syrupy voice, “For the sophisticated palate.”

Asher didn’t know whether to be amused or wary. He took a careful sip and arched his eyebrows, surprised by the rich flavor. “Mmm, that’s good.”

“It is,” she agreed, spinning around on the stool so that they faced the same direction, “and terribly addicting. I limit myself strictly to five a week.”

He sputtered a chuckle around his straw. “You’re kidding.”

“I couldn’t get through that door back there if I had five of these a week. A girl can dream, though, can’t she?”

“Is that what you dream of?” Asher asked offhandedly, helping himself to a napkin from a dispenser.

“No, not really,” she answered, suddenly serious. She stirred the drink with her straw, drawing languid circles in the thick foam. “I dream of what every woman dreams of. Husband, home, children. Romance.”

“Romance,” he echoed sourly, with a shake of his head. “Romance will wreck the other three, if you’re not careful.”

“Is that what happened to your marriage?” she asked softly. “She wanted romance to go along with the home and husband?”

That came surprisingly close to the truth—so close, in fact, that Asher heard himself say, “Life is not romance. It’s a lot of hard work and, if you’re very blessed, part pleasure.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s all I’ve ever had time for.”

“But what about other things, like children?”

“We didn’t get that far,” he said tersely, “but I can’t imagine that adding kids to the mix would make room for romance.”

“I think your definition of romance is too narrow,” she told him. “You’re talking about grand gestures of the flowers-and-mood-music sort. Sometimes romance is just knowing that you’ll be together at the end of the day. It’s
wanting
to be together even when the demands of life necessarily separate you.”

“According to her, the ‘demands of life,’ as you put it, was the only part that I was any good at.”

“Maybe she wasn’t any good at some of her parts, either.”

“What makes you say that?” he asked, shooting Ellie a surprised look. “She seems to have done okay the second time around.”

“Maybe she has more in common with her husband this time, or maybe he doesn’t have to work as hard as most. A wife has to be supportive of a hardworking husband.”

“Even if it means giving up what she wants and needs?”

“Why would it?”

“Maybe he just doesn’t have time for her. What then?”

“Then he doesn’t really care for her.”

He stared at Ellie, his worst fear laid bare.

“Look,” Ellie said, shifting closer and lowering her voice, “every couple has to learn to make time for each other. Sometimes, one or both has to give up something, but normally they do it through shared interests and goals.”

Asher stared at his drink. He could have given up soccer. At the time, it had seemed like the only thing keeping him sane, the only way he could get through law school and come home to Samantha with anything less than a snarl on his face. When they’d been dating, Samantha had often come out to watch and cheer him on when he’d played, but after the wedding, she had lost interest and come to resent every moment that he’d spent playing. But he hadn’t been willing to give it up. It had seemed unthinkable, frankly. What did that say about him as a person, let alone a husband?

“Do you still love her?” Ellie asked, watching him closely.

He wasn’t entirely sure now that he had ever loved Samantha, but he simply shook his head and went with the short answer. “No.”

“Then it’s the failure that destroys you,” Ellie surmised.

Astonished, Asher set his glass down with a plunk. He stared at her for a long moment, wondering just
exactly what it was that he saw in her eyes. Understanding? Sadness? Wisdom? Hope? Something more, something from which he instinctively shied.

“I expect Mr. Inventor has gone on his way by now,” he said, injecting just the right note of avuncular humor into his tone. “Gotta run.” He took a last drag on his straw—the drink really was quite good—spun his stool and left, leaving her with a smile and a nod of thanks.

He didn’t pretend that he wasn’t running away, because he was. And he counted it among the wisest things he’d ever done.

Lord, heal that man,
Ellie prayed, as Asher walked away. It wasn’t as simple as a broken heart; she saw that now. The poor man had chosen the wrong woman, and he’d taken on the full blame for the failure of the marriage, but his ex had chosen wrong, too. It wasn’t all his fault. Somehow, he had to learn to forgive and trust himself again.
Open his eyes, Lord,
she whispered in her heart, and then, because she couldn’t stop herself,
Let him see what’s right in front of him.

Her grandfather trundled up to her. His footsteps were no longer as quick or sure as they had once been, and his belly strained against the buttons of his white lab coat, but he was still himself—a man with a huge, loving heart. She smiled in gratitude for all he was to her, all he’d taught her.

“Asher didn’t stay long,” he remarked.

“He’s a busy man.”

“The best ones are.” She said nothing to that, just smiled. “Ready?” he asked.

She popped up off the stool. “Just let me wash these glasses first.”

He squeezed in behind the counter and helped her. Seconds later, they left the building together. Relieved to find that Lance had, indeed, gone away, she happily allowed her grandfather to escort her to her red truck. His old sedan was constantly being serviced or repaired, so she often gave him a ride to or from the shop.

Ten minutes later, Ellie turned her pickup between the thick brick pillars at the foot of the drive, passing by the wrought-iron gate with a tall, golden
C
at its center. As she downshifted to make the slight incline, a sense of peace enveloped her. This wasn’t home, and it didn’t feel like home, but it did feel like sanctuary.

About halfway up the hill, the drive curved into a broad circle, with the graceful mansion standing at its apex. It was a beautiful old house, flanked by a rose arbor on the east and an enormous magnolia tree on the west. Everything about the place evoked a sense of permanence, continuity and hope.

Parking at the foot of the broad, redbrick walkway, Ellie paused to silently thank God for the safety, comfort and peace that she and her grandfather had found in this place.

“It’s a special house, isn’t it?” Kent remarked. “It always has been a special place because the people in it are special. Funny how we imbue a place with our essence. I think that’s why there is nothing sadder than an empty house.” He shifted in his seat, looking at her. “Have you ever noticed how quickly an empty house deteriorates? You can sit there for decades and do little to nothing to maintain the place, and it will eventually fall down around your ears. But walk away, leave it empty, and it’ll go to pot in a matter of months, weeks sometimes.”

“I hope this house is never empty,” she said.

“Not until Jesus comes again and makes all things new. And even then I hope there will be Chatams here.”

It was a sweet thought, one that humbled her. How silly she was to try to handle every little problem herself when the God of Creation and the Savior of Souls was in charge. From now on, she decided, she would let Him handle things and confine her own involvement to prayer. If Dallas had done what Ellie had feared she had, Ellie didn’t even want to know because she didn’t want to lie, even if it meant protecting her well-meaning but foolish friend. Besides, Ellie could not change anything that had happened or convince Asher to give her grandfather and his aunt time to search their hearts for long-buried feelings. Only God could do that.

Besides, being in Asher’s company awoke foolish dreams. Why embarrass herself and feed her foolishness? He was not the man who could give her what she wanted, needed and deserved. He didn’t even believe himself capable of being a good husband, and didn’t want to try.

Perhaps it wasn’t even about Asher, though. Perhaps it was all about her.

Perhaps no man was right for her. Perhaps God intended her to remain single.

Better that than married to the wrong man.

It was only later, as she settled into her comfortable bed there in Chatam House, that a thought struck her. Asher had not always thought himself a poor candidate for marriage. Obviously, he had wanted to marry at one time. Otherwise, he would not have done so. No, it was just as she’d thought earlier. He had chosen the wrong woman, and that had changed his outlook entirely. Might the right woman change it once again?

There you go,
she scolded herself, punching her pillow into a more comfortable shape,
asking for trouble. Imagining yourself with Asher will only set you up for disappointment.

It would definitely be better to avoid the temptation of spinning dreams around Asher Chatam, which meant avoiding the man himself. God would bring the right man to her in His own good time. He had never failed to provide her with anything else, after all. She could trust Him for her own happiness, as well as her grandfather’s.

It was past time that she acted like it.

“Asher, dear!” Hypatia tilted her head to receive his kiss on her cheek. “We weren’t expecting to see you again so soon.”

Glancing meaningfully at his sister on the settee next to their Aunt Magnolia in the front parlor of Chatam House, Asher fixed a smile in place. “Well, I was told that I could find my sister here.” Run her to ground, more like.