Love Remains (18 page)

She hung the suit on the shower-curtain rod and spritzed it lightly with citrus-basil scented body spray, then turned the bottle toward herself. The image in the mirror when she faced it didn’t make her happy. Flannery constantly bemoaned her fine, straight hair and said she envied Zarah’s thick, naturally curly mane. If possible, Zarah would trade with her friend in an instant. Everyone said late-1980s
styles were coming back in vogue—but she seriously doubted that several-inch-high bushed-out curls would ever make a comeback.

After half an hour and tons of product, she managed to get her hair under some kind of control—and to try to hide the fact it was unevenly multicolored, with reddish highlights on one side and blondish highlights on the other. Actually, the blondish highlights were starting to look more whitish gray than blond. Maybe she needed to take Caylor up on her offer to teach her how to color her own hair.

She wolfed down two pieces of whole-wheat toast and drained what was left of the coffee from last night—not as good reheated in the microwave as fresh, but better than no coffee at all—then put on her makeup and dressed.

Midtown traffic at a quarter of seven in the morning wasn’t too bad, and the clock in her office showed 6:54 when she walked in. She put a final copy of the senate report on Dennis’s desk then walked down the hall to the aptly named map room to return the maps she’d taken home to scan last night.

An hour later, she barely had time to stop by and exchange good mornings with Dennis and ask him if he had any last-minute changes to the report.

“Would I do that to you?” He smiled at her in an indulgent, fatherly way. At least, it was the way in which she’d always wished her father had smiled at her.

She shook the thought from her head. “It’s not that I expect you to have any changes; it’s only that I want to make sure you haven’t found anything that needs to be changed in an eleventh-hour review of the document.”

“Ah. It’s because you suspect that I don’t actually read your report until the night before you’re going to give it. I see.”

“No, it’s not—” She stopped. From the amusement in Dennis’s brown eyes, she’d stepped right into his trap.

“Zarah, the report is perfect, just like you.”

She rolled her eyes. “We’re in big trouble if the report is just like
me. They’re going to find flaws and imperfections all over the place.”

Dennis stood, came around the desk, and took Zarah by the shoulders, as if to shake her. “How many times have I told you not to speak that way in front of me? I have known you for ten years, Zarah Mitchell, and I can tell you beyond a doubt that you are one of the most wonderful people I have ever had the honor of knowing. You are my right hand—and my left hand, most of the time—and I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Zarah blinked rapidly against the burning moisture pooling in her eyes. After fourteen years away from her father’s influence—and many of those years spent in counseling—it was so easy for her to fall into self-deprecation whenever anyone praised her. But to be called
perfect
—no one had ever called her that. In fact, her father had always pointed out the ways in which Phoebe was perfect and how Zarah could never be like her older sister.

“Remember, if you aren’t oozing confidence when you walk into that conference room, those senators will tear you to pieces. So”—he nudged her chin up with his fist—”buck up and remember who you are. You are Zarah Mitchell, PhD, assistant director and senior archivist of the Middle Tennessee Historic Preservation Commission.”

“And your right hand.” Zarah took a cautious deep breath. With her head angled up, she had to look down her nose at Dennis, who was already almost two inches shorter than she, but with heels on, she towered over him.

He laughed, squeezed her shoulder, chucked her under the chin, and returned to his chair. “Yes, my right hand. Now, you’d best be on your way. Don’t want to be less than half an hour early, do you?”

Zarah checked the pendant watch. “Goodness, I didn’t realize how late it was getting. Hopefully I’ll see you this afternoon, boss. Depends on how many questions the newbie has for me.”

Dennis waved in dismissal. “Go. Remember—confidence.”

She left the building humming “I Have Confidence” from
The Sound of Music
—great, that would be stuck in her head for the rest of
the day now. She laughed and checked to make sure she had everything in the car she needed for the meeting, then got in and headed for Legislative Plaza.

After setting up her laptop on the podium and testing the connection to the projector, she placed the vinyl-covered reports at nine places at the first of two raised, semicircular tiers of desks. She then sat in one of the spectator seats below and closed her eyes, asking God to give her genuine confidence and calm and to help the meeting go well. She prayed for each of the senators by name—except the new one, for whom she prayed generally, too.

“Excuse me, I hate to interrupt. I’m Todd Warren—I’m looking for the Middle Tennessee Historic Commission presentation.”

She opened her eyes at the masculine voice…and then blinked again. Instead of middle-aged and looking bored to death, the man who hovered in the doorway couldn’t be much older than she—and his arrival a full five minutes before the meeting time gave him the air of eagerness.

Zarah stood and walked to the end of the row of theater-style spectator seats, extending her right hand. “Senator Warren, I’m Zarah Mitchell from the MTHPC.”

The young senator’s mouth dropped open slightly as he took her hand.
“You’re
Dr. Mitchell? I expected some old, frumpy-looking librarian type. Not someone young and beautiful.” His face flushed deep red. “I mean, it’s very nice to meet you, Dr. Mitchell.”

Zarah’s face felt as hot as his looked. “I’ll even the score and say you’re not the only one who’s surprised. You’re not at all what I expected, either.”

Senator Warren released her hand and wandered up onto the stage behind the first crescent-shaped table. The room always reminded her of a courtroom, with the senators sitting above her, judging her.

“I know.” Senator Warren ran his fingers along the top of one of the high-backed leather chairs. “Most people still expect my great-uncle when they hear
Senator Warren
. He passed away suddenly nine
months ago, and I decided to run for his seat in the special election. Helps that the district is more than half filled with relatives.” He grinned at her, showing lines around his mouth and eyes that hinted he might be a little older than she’d first guessed. But his sandy brown hair didn’t show any signs of graying, so she probably wasn’t too far off her guess of mid- to late thirties.

“When I found out I was going to be on this committee, I went to the state library and pulled the records of the last few meetings and listened to excerpts from them. I have to say, I’m fascinated by what you do, Dr. Mitchell.”

She stood beside the podium, gripping the edge of it. “Thank you, Senator Warren.”

“Please, it’s Todd.”

Shaking her head, she looked pointedly at the nameplates that showed where each senator was to sit during the committee meeting. None of them bore the senators’ first names. “We keep things rather formal. As Senator Taylor likes to point out—we all worked hard to get into this room.”

Senator Warren had very white teeth, shown off nicely when he smiled. “Very well then, Dr. Mitchell. I have tons of questions—but I don’t want to take up everyone’s time asking you about stuff they all probably know because they’ve been coming to these meetings for years. I would love to come by and see your facility—get the five-dollar tour, you know—and maybe go for coffee so I can pick your brain a little bit.”

Her heart pounded like a drummer boy sounding the command to charge in the heat of battle. Had the young, good-looking new senator just asked her out?

No. He’d asked her to get him up to speed on what he’d need to know going forward with the committee. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy herself at the same time. “Yes, I think that sounds like a great idea.”

Wouldn’t Flannery be proud?

Chapter 14

P
lease don’t make me have to come get you this morning
.

Bobby kept his eye on Zarah even as he moved about the large Sunday school classroom, meeting new people and exercising his memory in greeting by name those he’d met before. Though he knew it would not endear him to her, he determined before arriving this morning that he would make sure Zarah did not separate herself from the group once the lesson began.

Something seemed different about her today. And it wasn’t just that she’d pulled her hair back into a cluster of curls at the back of her head, leaving just a few long curlicues loose at her temples and around the nape of her neck. Nor was it the fact that she wore a skirt that barely came below her knees, showing off tanned, shapely calves and ankles above a pair of low-heeled red shoes with a cutout that showed a couple of her pale pink toenails.

No, there was something in her expression, a glint of self-confidence in her eyes he hadn’t seen before—well, he’d seen it before, just not in a very, very long time. Maybe it had been her recent illness that had made her seem more like the downtrodden teen he’d known.

Lyssa Thompson slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow. “Hey, there. I hear congratulations are in order.”

Bobby’s arm tingled—and not in a good way. He turned, dislodging her proprietary grip. “Congratulations?”

“On buying a condo. I’m so jealous. I love that building. I actually put a bid in on a one-bedroom when it first opened, but the bidding went way higher than I could afford. Stacy didn’t give us the details. What did you end up getting?”

Yep, the guys had been right last week. Lyssa Thompson was like kudzu—once she took root, it would be nearly impossible to get away from her. “I’m under contract for one of the two-bedroom-with-study, panoramic condos.”

Lyssa couldn’t be more excited for him—she loved those units, would
simply die
to see the interior of one of them.

A familiar laugh drew Bobby’s attention away from the babbling young woman beside him. His insides went all soft, like cheese fondue—then hardened like the crusty residue left at the bottom of the pot at the end of the party. Zarah stood with a man Bobby was pretty sure he hadn’t met yet—about six-foot, maybe 190, short brown hair, nondescript profile—and she
touched his arm
when she laughed again.

Bobby forced himself to relax. Just because he’d decided that maybe he’d been wrong to believe what General Mitchell had told him about Zarah didn’t mean he had any right to be jealous when she flirted with another man.

He did suddenly remember something he needed to talk to Zarah about, though. As soon as Lyssa took a breath, he took his opportunity. “Will you excuse me, please?” He inclined his head and moved away before she could say anything else and made his way to Zarah.

The guy she’d been talking to wandered off—to be surrounded by several females—and Zarah turned, coffee carafe in hand, looking for anyone who might need a refill.

She blinked a couple of times when she saw him, and her lips thinned slightly before she smiled at him. “Bobby. Good to see you this morning. Can I get you some coffee?” She lifted the carafe between them.

“No, thank you. I saw you giving out tickets earlier. I meant to e-mail you earlier this week, but I kept getting distracted.” Actually, he’d dismissed the idea of e-mailing her so that he’d have an excuse to start a conversation with her.

“Oh, yes, I have your ticket.” She turned and stepped over to the welcome table and grabbed her purse from the chair.

“That was what I wanted to talk to you about. You see, something’s come up. A co-worker is having an office party on Friday night, and I really feel like I should go—you know, new guy in the office and all. Be a good way for me to get to know some of the other folks I work with.”

Zarah straightened, eyebrows raised. “Oh. Okay. I can refund your money and either sell the ticket to someone else or get a refund from the school.”

“Actually, I was hoping you could exchange it for me—and get two additional tickets—for the Saturday matinee. When I told my grandparents about it, they decided they’d like to go, and I think they have some other friends who are going to the Saturday afternoon show. So I thought I could go with them instead.”

He watched her expression carefully. Mamm had mentioned that Trina and Victor Breitinger had said they’d be attending the show Saturday afternoon…with Zarah. Chase’s invitation to a get-together at his house this Friday had made the perfect excuse to go to the matinee, when he’d have a better chance at talking to Zarah.

Zarah’s brows raised even higher, her blue eyes widened. “Oh… well, okay. Yes, I can get those Saturday tickets for you. But I won’t be able to get them until Thursday evening when I’m out there for my class.”

“Where’s your office? I could pick them up from you Friday around lunchtime.”

“We’re just south of downtown on West End.” She gave him directions and he frowned, as if trying to picture them in his mind, even though he knew exactly where the Middle Tennessee History
Museum and the attached MTHPC offices were.