I stood and walked to the end of the deck to survey what was on the first level. More seating and a swim-up bar complete with stools at the end of the pool. Amazing.
“I should have told you to bring your suit.” Ethan’s voice broke my concentration. He opened the lid to the grill and placed the two skewers covered in vegetables on the cooking grate. I joined him just in time to see him flip two humongous steaks.
“How many pounds of meat is that? It literally looks like a side of beef.”
“Twenty-four ounce Porterhouses. This is make an impression meat. I reserve it for the very best in dinner guest.”
I raised an eyebrow. “It works. I’m impressed. I know you didn’t pick these up at Piggly Wiggly.”
He shook his head. “I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to my beef. I don’t eat much of it, so when I do I prefer grass fed.” He closed the grill and put down the fork. “I have a few shipped in when I come home.”
I nodded and returned to the edge of the deck. “This is amazing. I’m surprised you built it when you spend so little time here.”
One broad shoulder lifted in a shrug. “This is home. I want home to feel like a retreat.” He began. “Remember, when I’m building houses and schools and wells we sometimes sleep in some pretty cruddy spots. There aren’t any five star hotels in Southern Sudan. Even if there were, we wouldn’t stay in them. It’s not cool to build houses for the poor and retire to luxurious hotels, so when I’m working I sleep in campsites.”
I thought about that, about his sacrifice. How could someone so loving and generous be removed from the God who had gifted him to give? I turned back to him. “I admire you. I haven’t slept an uncomfortable night in my life.”
He leaned in closer. The effect of the daylight savings had already cast a shadow of darkness that the overhead light worked to compensate for. His eyes were serious. He licked his lips and I was certain he was going to kiss me again. I was going to let him, but then his phone began to beep.
He reached in his pocket. “That’s the timer. I have to get the stuff in the kitchen.”
I cleared my throat, stepped back a little to get away from his heat. “Let me help.”
He shook his head, still never removing his eyes from mine. “No, relax. I like to serve.” He made a quick departure back into the house.
He liked to serve. God that had to be a line, because the Lord didn’t make them like that anymore. I shook my head, removed my phone from my pocket and sent a text to Gayle.
Me: I’m at Ethan’s. He’s making me dinner.
Gayle: Sounds romantic. You two are spending a lot of time together.
Me: He’s a really nice man. I can’t believe someone hasn’t snatched him up.
Gayle: Maybe he’s been waiting for you.
Me: He’s too young for me, Gayle.
Gayle: If you say so. He looks like a grownup to me.
I didn’t have a response to that. He was too young for me. Wasn’t he?
I heard the whoosh of the sliding glass door and Ethan rejoined me. He placed the tray in his hands on the table. It included bread, salad filled bowls and plates with covered domes.
I put my phone on vibrate and joined him at the table. He opened the lid to the grill, moved our steak and vegetables to the plates and then recovered them. I took a seat and moved my napkin to my lap.
“Wow, I’m impressed. Everything looks delicious. Are you sure I’m not going to go in there and see the chef heading out the front door?” I pointed towards the house.
Ethan chuckled. “Not tonight.” He took a seat. “Let’s hope it’s as good as it looks.”
He reached for a fork. I reached for his hand and tilted my head. “Grace?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
We closed our eyes and I hesitated waiting for him to say it. I opened one eye and found he still had his closed. Just when I was about to pray he found his voice and blessed the food.
We began to eat. The salad, a mix of super-greens that I recognized as Swiss chard, Bok Choy, spinach, and arugula along with shrimp, was tossed with a wonderful vinaigrette dressing that was flavored with ginger.
I shook my head as I let the flavors dance in my mouth. “This is the best salad dressing. What is it and can I get it in this country?” I asked.
“You can get it out of your own kitchen. It’s homemade.”
I dropped my fork. “Stop playing. You did not make this.”
“I did, but I’ve been making it for years, so I’ve pretty much perfected it.” He winked. “I made it with your delicate stomach in mind. It has ginger in it.”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t know how to take such a considerate gesture. I picked up my fork and pointed. “I want the recipe.”
Ethan smiled and dropped his eyes to his food. I sensed my compliment carried more weight than it should. With all his confidence and success it never occurred to me that he needed affirmation, but of course he did, we all needed it.
“So,” I said, “I’m not going to beat around the bush. Why don’t you go to church anymore?”
Ethan coughed. Picked up his water glass and took a long sip.
I shook my head and tried to resist laughing. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to torpedo you.”
“No,” he cleared his throat. “I just, one second we were talking about salad dressing …” he paused, stood and escaped inside the house.
I sat back against my chair. That might have been a little rude, but he wasn’t going to be wining and dining me and asking me to open my mouth and I not know if the man had gone to Africa and converted to Islam. I might not go to church every time the door opened, but I was a Christian and that wasn’t changing.
I picked up my glass, swirled it around and took a sip. Ethan came back out of the house and took a seat.
“I was about to come in and perform the Heimlich maneuver on you.”
“No need. I had to check on something in the kitchen.”
I squinted curiously suspecting he was actually running from my question.
His eyes widened at my questioning glare. “Okay, I confess I burned dessert.”
“Oh,” I said with a laugh.
“I meant to restart my timer. It’s okay, I have a backup.”
I laughed again and put more salad in my mouth.
He moved his salad to the side and reached for a roll. “You’re laughing at me. I can’t do everything right.”
I returned my glass to the table. “You’re so cocky. Who says you do everything right?”
Ethan took in a deep breath. A devilish look came over his face. “I’m not going to incriminate myself by answering that.”
I rolled my eyes. This conversation had gone to the far side. It was time to reel it in. “That was a nice blessing you said for the food. I was asking you why you don’t go to church.”
Ethan reached for his glass. “What makes you think I don’t go to church?”
I decided not to keep my source a secret. “Janette told me you hadn’t been to Pastor Wright’s church since high school.”
Ethan smiled. “So, you’re talking about me, eh?”
I blushed again, but resisted the urge to avert my eyes.
“I go to worship all the time. I just don’t go when I’m here.”
“Why?”
“I have my reasons.”
He seemed uncomfortable with the question, but I wasn’t dropping this line of questioning. I had to know. “When you say worship are you talking about a Christian worship or some other kind?”
Ethan’s expression became serious. “We all serve the same God don’t we?”
My stomach dropped and so did my jaw.
Ethan laughed. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.” He continued to laugh. “I’m Team Jesus forever. I just don’t go to Pastor Wright’s church and I don’t want to embarrass him by visiting another one.”
Okay, so there was some family business I didn’t know anything about. Terrance hadn’t mentioned strife
with Ethan when we were dating. I cleared my throat like you did right before you were going to ask a nosy question. “Do you mind me asking why?”
“I don’t mind you asking, but I don’t really want to talk about it,” he replied.
I was starting to feel like a hypocrite. I kept insisting I wouldn’t date a younger man, so it shouldn’t have mattered what he was or if he was still dating that model or if he was getting on a plane to God knows where the morning after the wedding. None of that should have mattered, because he was way too young for me. But even with all that rationalization, I couldn’t let it go.
I nodded. “You can’t say something like that and not tell me why. I promise I won’t tell a soul.”
It was Ethan that cleared his throat this time. I could see he was uncomfortable. “I kind of have… had a problem with my uncle.”
I tilted my head toward him indicating I needed more.
“I found a letter my mother wrote to him. I figured out I was eleven based on the postmark. She asked him if she could come back to Garrison. She wanted to live in this house.” He paused. “I asked him about it, specifically why she never came and he said he told her there were conditions. No boyfriends, she had to go to church, get a job and attend drug treatment meetings. I don’t think she liked the rules.”
This was much heavier than I thought. I fingered the cross that hung around my neck and prayed for the right words to say to him. “Pastors always have rules,” I said, easily. “It’s kind of a job requirement.”
He inhaled deeply and then let his breath out in an audible sigh. “I know, but, she was his sister. He knew she was troubled. And it wasn’t like she was going to be in his house. She wanted to stay in her father’s house, but my uncle had the keys, so he had the control.”
I was shocked. This story was getting worse. Ethan slumped in his chair and I was certain his posture was consistent with the way he was probably feeling.
“It’s taken me ten years to stop being angry about it.” He picked up his fork and played with it nervously. “It’s hard for me to not think if she’d been here in Garrison that she wouldn’t have died or at least she wouldn’t have died before I saw her alive again.”
His eyes began to shine in the dim light and my heart broke for him. I reached for his hand and squeezed it. He sat up, shook his head like he was shaking off pain. “I’ve never told anyone that,” he said and then he shoved a piece of bread in his mouth.
“You needed to.” I squeezed his hand again.
“Yeah, I guess, but it hurts to say it. Heck, it hurts to think about it.” He let out another long sigh. “And Terrance didn’t help.”
My ears perked up. “What did Terrance do?”
“I was upset about the conversation I had with his father. I tried to talk to him and he took up for his dad.” He shook his head. “The thing is I wasn’t looking for someone to agree or disagree with me. I know my mother had issues. I just wanted a listening ear. He started throwing all kinds of scripture and church rules at me.” He pushed his body up in the seat and raised an eyebrow. “What did you ever see in that guy?”
We both laughed. I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “But, I’m not trying to figure it out now.”
“Well, anyway, now you know why I haven’t been to my uncle’s church.”
Silence filled the space for a minute while we continued to eat. I had experienced a lot of pain, but this was a kind of loss I didn’t know anything about. I was out of comforting words, but I couldn’t not say anything. “You know your uncle has regrets too, even if he feels he made the right decision, he still has regrets. There’s no way he couldn’t.”
Ethan raised his glass. “And he should.”
I took a deep breath before my next words. “No matter what you think your uncle did you know you need to forgive him, right?”
The smile dropped from Ethan’s face. He finished chewing the food in his mouth before speaking. “I already have. I’m stepping into his church for the wedding. He’ll know what that means.”
“Forgiveness, man style?” I asked, smiling.
“Most definitely different from the way you women do it.”
We laughed again. Our fingers were still intertwined. He turned my hand over, examining it and rubbing the fingertips and palm until he reached my wrist. “So, tell me, did my transparency earn me some cool points?”
I slowly pulled my hand out of his. The way he touched it was so sensual that it unnerved me. I lowered my gaze and reached for bread, determined not to say the wrong thing just because everything felt right.
“I don’t get an answer to that?” he asked.
I stopped being coy and met his stare. The look in his eyes was more than a little serious. I wanted to tell him he was on overload on the cool points, but I couldn’t. Not in this intimate setting.
He drummed his fingers on the table and said, “Okay.” I could tell it was not okay. He stood and gathered our salad dishes. “I’m going to take dessert out of the frig, so it can warm up a bit while we eat dinner.”
I opened my mouth to say something to his back, but I let the protest die on my lips. He was disappointed. I didn’t know what to do about that. This wasn’t a date. It was dinner between friends. I was trying to keep it that way, but Ethan was pushing hard and I didn’t know what he wanted. Sex? Some casual fling while he was in town? He was fine, but he wasn’t fine enough for me to lose my mind and sleep with him.
I was glad to find out he wasn’t backslidden, but he was still seven years younger than me and he was more than a little bit of a globetrotter. I wasn’t going to be a fool. Ethan Wright was not a man who could be pinned down and I was not a woman who took flight. We weren’t right for each other and I wasn’t going to let a romance in Garrison break my heart. I’d been there and done that.
Chapter 9
My sleep was troubled. I tossed and turned over how I was leading Ethan on. Still I was glad to see his truck pull in the driveway, because I was two seconds from putting my hand around Janette’s throat. She was such an overly dramatic princess about everything – her cow ankles that she’d named cankles, her sore breast, her weight and her pre-wedding jitters. Terrance had no idea what he signed on for. I would have to put up with her whining and complaining for a little more than a week, Terrance for life. But----- that was his problem, not mine. He wanted to date his ex’s sister. Well, he had her. Maybe the best revenge was letting people live with their choices.
I grabbed my bag and made my way out to the truck. Ethan was waiting next to the passenger side door for me. He opened it, I climbed in and he joined me. “You look like you’ve eaten some nails,” he said.
“It’s Janette. I’ve had my fill of her.”
“It’s only eight a.m.?”
“It doesn’t take much with my sister.” I pulled my seat belt around me.
“You want to talk about it?”
“Not at all,” I replied. “Let’s get going.”
I took in his look through my peripheral vision. He and I were dressed alike in jeans and tee-shirts. He also sported a crocheted skull cap patterned as a soccer ball. He looked cool and of course handsome. It sure didn’t take much for him. Sex appeal oozed from his pores.
I caught him looking at my feet, or more aptly, he was staring at my leopard printed pony ankle boots.
“I can walk in these for twenty hours,” I declared, raising a leg and wiggling my foot.
“Does the red bottom guy make any shoes that don’t have ten inch heels?”
“The red bottom guy is Christian Louboutin,” I said to be clear. “Yes, he makes flats, but I’m not sure what the point is when he designs such amazing stilettos.” I smiled and put my foot down. “I thought you liked my heels.”
“I do, but hey, we’re shopping. I’m a practical guy,” he said and then mumbled, “I’m not trying to carry you all day either.”
I laughed. “Don’t worry. My heels are an extension of my legs.”
&n
bsp; He shook his head and started the engine. “They’re your feet, babe. Address please. I like to use my navigation when I’m in riding with a pretty lady. Cool points stay up if I don’t get lost.”
I gave him the side eye and then nodded toward the navigation system. “You must wear out the computer on those things.”
He chuckled. “She’s got jokes this morning. This truck stays in Garrison, so not many women have been in it.”
I wasn’t taking that bait. It was too early to talk about his love life. I read off the address and watched as he programmed the fancy buttons on the dash and we pulled out of the driveway. “It’s amazing the technology we have now. I’m waiting for the day when the Jetsons reality comes to fruition. You know, cars driving themselves.”
Ethan shrugged. “I’m sure they’re working on it, but I won’t buy. I personally love to get behind the wheel of a car.”
“I wish I felt the same. I dread it,” I said, anticipating impending nausea. I’d forgotten to pick up motion sickness meds yesterday.
I noticed his eye knit over his brow. “Car travel is kind of a weird phobia. I remember you were in college when you finally passed the driver test. Terrance was relieved. He was sick of being your personal driver’s ed. teacher.”
“And he was a horrible teacher,” I said.
“I couldn’t wait to get my license. Driving was a rite of passage. Why so late for you?”
I propped an elbow on the window frame and rested my head against my fist. “I don’t know. I’ve always been car sick for as long as I can remember. I wasn’t looking forward to driving.”
“Some people are like that,” he said. “You ever try to figure out why?”
I shook my head, feeling suddenly claustrophobic about the conversation. “You don’t mind if we change the subject.”
Ethan nodded and silence filled the car. I sensed he was giving me time with my emotions, time to get used to the ride; time to decompress from the tense morning with Janette, but it wasn’t long before we began chatting again. Ethan shared fantastic stories about life in African villages where he had gone to build homes and schools. The most interesting part was about how he slept in structures that were a little more than tents and they had water shortages and no electricity for large hunks of time during the day.
Breaking All The Rules (Book 1 - Second Chances Series) Page 8