The Doctor's Unexpected Family: (Inspirational Romance) (Port Provident: Hurricane Hope) (14 page)

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.”

The open doors at
Huarache’s
Restaurant, the legendary Gulf view 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, 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 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. As usual, she had 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 definitely 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 sat 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, 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 really tore me up. And I’ve never even given 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 really 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 really 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.”