Step with Me: Love Amiss... A Christian Romance (Seaside Chapel Book 2)

by Jan Thompson

  “Don’t worry about it, okay?”

  It was time to tell him. “Why don’t I see you tonight at seven o’clock when we meet Helen?”

  “You’re going to cycle to my house? What if it rains?”

  “I’ll be okay. I’ll bring a change of clothes.”

  “Cycling at night… I don’t like the sound of it.”

  “I’ve done it before. I have reflector strips on the bike and my backpack.”

  “It’s dangerous for you to cycle at night.” His voice was sincere.

  “It’s dusk, not night.”

  “Still…”

  Emmeline didn’t respond. She didn’t want to tell Sebastian that she couldn’t afford to rent a car even for one day, let alone for six weeks. “Look, Seb. Don’t worry about me. You take care of your Talia situation. I’ll be fine.”

  Honks blared at them from behind Sebastian’s car as he slowed down near Scrolls. Traffic crawled.

  For some reason Emmeline couldn’t read, he reached for her arm as he pulled to a stop near the Scrolls front entrance.

  He didn’t let go of her arm.

  “If I don’t get out of your car now, Seb, you’re going to get a ticket.” Emmeline narrowed her eyes at him. “Then you’ll be sorry you chauffeured me around.”

  “I’m not sorry about anything.” He let go of her arm and raised the passenger side door for her. “That lavender dress looks good on you.”

  “Periwinkle,” Emmeline said as she exited the car.

  “Whatever. I like it.”

  “Thank you, I guess. See you at seven.”

  “No, Emmeline. I’m picking you up after work today. Glad you’re going to be at one place. Makes it easy.”

  Emmeline didn’t respond. She spun around on the sidewalk, and headed for the Scrolls front door. That was when she realized that someone was looking out of the window on the café side.

  A familiar face.

  She pretended not to notice.

  She held the door open for a mother pushing a toddler in a stroller. When she reached the foyer where the new fiction titles were propped up on a roundtable, she glanced toward the café.

  Sure enough.

  She waved to Talia Cavanaugh-Perry, having coffee and donuts with Jared Urquhart, biceps pushing through his shirt sleeves.

  Emmeline had started working at Scrolls just a few weeks before when the school year ended and teen workers found better paying summer jobs at the hotels and in the tourism industry.

  For all practical purposes Scrolls was fledgling, but its owner, Argo Perry, had worked hard to try to keep the doors open. Being estranged from his wife seemed to be affecting the pensioner. Hushed words among the Scrolls employees indicated that he lacked the funds to stay in business beyond Christmas.

  Most readers now shopped online. Independent bookstores weren’t the only ones suffering; chain bookstores didn’t fare any better these days. The good news with Scrolls was that the employees still had a paycheck.

  For now.

  Talia motioned for Emmeline to go toward them.

  Emmeline glanced at her watch. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

  She went to the back of the store, clocked in, and put on her Scrolls name tag.

  When she returned to the café, Talia was sitting on Jared’s lap, just like she had done last Tuesday. Prior to that she hadn’t been paying attention to the lovebirds.

  It was funny how things that mattered came into focus, but then she didn’t have any recollections from the past. According to Sebastian, Talia had been on vacation in May and early June, around the time Emmeline started working at Scrolls.

  “What happened to your hands?” Jared was the first to notice.

  Emmeline turned her palms up. A large Band-Aid was taped over the base of each palm. “I fell.”

  “Clumsy girl,” Talia said.

  “I guess I was.”

  “How’s Sebastian doing?” Talia moved on.

  Jared was kissing Talia’s neck, but his eyes were on her.

  Emmeline felt sorry for Sebastian. Is that the woman he wants back in his life?

  “He’s fine,” Emmeline said. “I have to get to work.”

  “Or I’ll fire you.” Talia laughed.

  “I’m in the store working, Talia. Would you like me to help you with something?”

  “More coffee.”

  “Will do.” Emmeline picked up Talia’s coffee cup. She returned with a new cup and fresh coffee.

  Jared’s eyes were still on Emmeline. By now, Talia had started to noticed.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Talia said.

  “Would you like the coffee to go?” Emmeline asked.

  “No. I’ve had enough coffee.” Talia headed for the door.

  Jared took his time. As he passed by Emmeline, he squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll see you at the rehearsal tomorrow night.”

  Emmeline said nothing.

  Have mercy on me, God.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Sebastian found Emmeline tidying up the children’s play area at Scrolls. She seemed pretty efficient and quick as she put away the stuffed animals and board books, in spite of her bandaged hands.

  “You again,” Emmeline teased as she bent over to arrange the board books on a low shelf.

  “Can’t get rid of me.”

  “Don’t you think you’d wear out your welcome after a while?” Emmeline placed two hands on her waist.

  “What do you mean? We’ve only been going out for two weeks.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Good news and bad news.”

  “Okay. Bad news first.”

  “Helen can’t make it tonight. She’s working a case, and is on her way out of state. She’s going to try to fly in Saturday and have dinner with us.”

  “Oh.”

  Sebastian couldn’t read that face. Was she sad? Upset? He couldn’t tell.

  Emmeline arranged little wooden chairs around a little round table. “Maybe we can invite her to church on Sunday.”

  “She might go.”

  “The good news?”

  “I need to show you something,” Sebastian said.

  “I’m working.”

  “We don’t have to leave the store. Just need to walk up front to the café area.” Sebastian started walking.

  Emmeline followed. “Speaking of café, guess who I saw this morning.”

  “Talia.” While not surprised, Sebastian was curious about Emmeline’s interaction with his ex-fiancée. “Before or after gym?”

  “I guess after. Jared was with her.”

  Sebastian didn’t want to know whether Talia was sitting on Jared’s lap. Sometimes he wanted to believe that Talia was simply making him jealous but he had been beginning to wonder if that was even true.

  “Anything else I need to know?” Sebastian asked.

  “No. But it’s uphill for you, if you know what I mean.”

  Sebastian led Emmeline to the window. The afternoon sun brought gold sparkles out of Emmeline’s hazel eyes that matched her wavy hair now tied up in knot. A chignon or something.

  “Yes?” Emmeline asked.

  “Uh, oh yes. Look outside. See the blue Chevy Suburban LTZ parked near the bird tree?” Sebastian pointed.

  “Bird tree?”

  “Right outside the front door.”

  “Bird tree?”

  Sebastian nodded. “A word of advice. Do not stand under the bird tree.”

  Emmeline’s hand went to her mouth, and Sebastian could hear a muffled guffaw.

  “Not funny, Em.”

  “We’re standing here looking at a bird tree.” Emmeline said between chuckles. “What’s the reason?”

  “It’s not the tree. The blue Chevy’s mine.”

  “Okay. Wonderful.” Emmeline stepped back.

  Sebastian lifted Emmeline’s hand nearest him. It was soft and supple and he wanted to hold it forever. He placed the remote clicker in her palm. “Drive it as long as you want
.”

  “Oh.”

  Sebastian leaned toward her. “Don’t like it? How about you drive my i8 then?”

  “Your little putt-putt car?” Emmeline sniffed. “The one with jump seats for backseats and a tiny basket for a trunk?”

  “It’s not that small.”

  “It’s no bigger than my concert pedal harp.”

  “Well, that Chevy has enough cargo space to transport your harp.”

  Something made Emmeline smile.

  “What?” Sebastian asked.

  “Nothing.” Her hand was shaking again. Sebastian held it, stroked it. “How are your scrapes and bruises?”

  “Uh, b-better. Thank you for asking.”

  He folded her fingers over the key fob. “There’s only one condition.”

  “What?”

  Sebastian reached for her face, wiped the single tear off with an index finger. “Promise me you won’t go back to that apartment alone.”

  She nodded. “I’ll give the truck back before I leave town.”

  Leave? Don’t leave.

  Emmeline peered out the window. “It does look like it has enough room to carry my pedal harp.”

  “I think so, though I had to eyeball the space and remember how big your harp is its case, with wheels and all.”

  “How are you going to get home?”

  “I’m going to see Matt Garnett in his shop. He’ll give me a ride.” A few blocks of walking would do him a world of good.

  Get this knot off my chest.

  Emmeline shook her head.

  “What?”

  “I can’t believe all that you’ve done for me.” She reached up, kissed him on the cheek and hugged his neck.

  Sebastian didn’t want to let her go.

  He didn’t know why.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Matt Garnett’s office was a storeroom stacked from floor to ceiling with steel racks of boxes and vases and antiques—or junk, depending on how one looked at them.

  As he waited for Matt to send off a customer, Sebastian tried to get comfortable on a barstool by a cluttered desk with scratched solid wood legs—oak or hickory, he couldn’t tell—that disappeared among more boxes of stuff on the floor.

  On the table, something caught his eye: periwinkle stones protruding out of a cardboard box. The box was unlabeled.

  He reached for it. It was a necklace. He picked it up. A bracelet fell out of the cluster.

  They looked like what Emmeline had worn to the double date last Friday.

  What are they doing here?

  “Pretty, aren’t they?” Matt shut the door and sat down in his office chair. “Periwinkle agate.”

  “Saving them for someone?” Sebastian thumbed the stones.

  “You’ve seen these before.” Matt pointed with fingernails covered with oil and grease stain. Probably working on another antique vehicle, Sebastian thought.

  Must be nice for Matt to have a job he liked.

  As for Sebastian, he wished he could get back to the kitchen. Maybe someday he could hire someone he could trust to run the business end of his restaurants to free him up to be chef again. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t given Talia fifty-one percent of the company shares.

  Matt went on. “She wore it last Friday night.”

  She?

  Emmeline.

  “Why are they here?” Sebastian put the necklace back into the box.

  “Three twenty for the set but I’ll settle for two hundred dollars if you want them.”

  Either way that’s a lot of money for Em. No wonder they’re still here. “One eighty and I’ll take them.”

  “Can’t be cheap about love, Seb.”

  “Love? Who said anything about love?” Sebastian shifted on the barstool.

  “Your eyes, man. The look of love.”

  Sebastian pointed to the single lamp above them. “You can tell that in this dimly lit room? Nah. You’re just jesting, man.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Stop looking into my eyes.”

  Matt rocked in his swiveling office chair. “Seb, you can’t love two people at the same time. You’ll always love one more than the other, and it’ll be unfair to the other one. Ask me how I know.”

  Sebastian remained very still.

  “In the end I lost both of them, Seb. Three years and I’m still alone. My penance for a divided heart.”

  “That was before you were saved.”

  “Right.” Matt stopped rocking. “And you led me to Christ, Seb. Now I’m seeing that you yourself are backsliding in your Christian walk.”

  “I’m not backsliding.”

  “No? Then tell me why there are two women in your life?” Matt asked.

  Sebastian cringed.

  He hadn’t planned on there being two.

  “You’ve got to make up your mind,” Matt continued. “Talia or Emmeline.”

  “You can tell that by my response to jewelry?”

  “Nope. You’re leading Emmeline on. She’s in love with you.”

  “No, she’s not. She’s leaving town at the end of July. She told me over and over.”

  “Her heart will always be here on St. Simon’s Island. I’ll blame you for that.”

  “I’m meant to be with Talia.” Even as he spoke it, Sebastian wasn’t sure if he believed it anymore. Since Emmeline showed up, a lot of things had changed.

  His desires now ran counter to his obligations or what he had perceived to be his obligations. “She was…”

  “Was,” Matt said. “You said she was.”

  Have I moved on?

  “You don’t have to marry the first one you you-know-what with,” Matt said.

  “It’s not that.”

  “You two were young and made mistakes. Besides, you weren’t even saved. And from the prayer requests we’ve had at Bible study, seems like Talia may not know the Lord even now. We’re talking unequal yoke here.”

  “You’re preaching.”

  “Bottomline is that you weren’t married to each other, and there was no baby.”

  “You mean teens can sleep around and it’ll be fine?”

  “Seb, you know I’m not saying that. The Bible says such physical intimacy is a special thing reserved for a husband and his wife. Premarital intimacy and adultery are both sins in the eyes of God. The repercussions are tremendous and life-altering. Ask me how I know.”

  “That’s why I’m trying to do the right thing, Matt.”

  “By marrying Talia even if you two go together like hot oil on cold water?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You don’t love Talia.”

  Sebastian stared at his friend. “How’d you figure that?”

  “You’d be married by now.”

  “Well, two people in love don’t necessarily have to be married.”

  “But you’re the marrying kind.”

  Marrying kind?

  “That’s why you and Talia were engaged twice, and disengaged twice. You’re not meant for each other.” Matt rocked in his chair again. “Have you prayed about this?”

  “Will you stop that? It’s annoying.”

  Matt leaned forward. “My advice is to ask God who you should be with the rest of your life. There’s only one for you.”

  “Choose one? Which one?” Sebastian wondered if it could be that easy.

  “Then again, you’ve already chosen, haven’t you?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Enrique Granados’s Oriental sounded through his mind with such clarity that Sebastian thought he was dreaming awake. Pity the tune kept repeating only several measures, dancing in his ears like a broken record.

  He could see Emmeline, plucking at the strings of her pedal harp, her fingers and arms an extension of the soundboard, her butterscotch blonde hair floating in the wind. They were outside, on the top deck of Saffron on Jekyll, but no one else was there at the restaurant. He was the only audience.

  She kept playing the same measures over a
nd over.

  And over.

  Sebastian opened his eyes.

  The music was still all around him. Then it intensified and seemed to come only in one direction. He turned his head.

  There on the side table, his iPhone on its charger echoed the Oriental in his dream.

  Sebastian stretched across the king-sized bed until he reached his iPhone. On the vertical screen was his sister’s face. Above her face was the time.

  2:07 a.m.

  Sebastian tapped the screen to talk to Skye. He activated the speaker phone. “It’s two in the morning, Skye. If this is an emergency, call 911. Don’t call me.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Skye was feisty when she was tired. There was no messing with her when she was in a bad mood.

  “What?” Feign ignorance. That would make Skye hit the ceiling.

  But Sebastian truly didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “Someone in my Women’s Bible Study Group forwarded me an email from Emmeline.”

  “Is she okay?” Sebastian put his head back on the feather pillow.

  The last time Skye called him had been Wednesday night—had it only been a couple of days?—when Emmeline had been trying to get away from Bart.

  “She has been sending out emails Thursday asking around for a place to stay through July.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Sebastian rolled to his side, the comforter mangled in his legs. He was wearing an undershirt and boxers, feeling comfortable, and wanting to go back to sleep if he could get Skye off the phone.

  “In exchange, Em offered to clean their houses,” Skye continued. “Mow their lawns, walk their dogs, babysit their kids.”

  “Sounds fair.”

  “Sebastian Reginald Langston! You are her boyfriend. You should be taking care of her.”

  “Technically, Skye, I’m only pretending to be her boyfriend. Besides, she’s independent and I want to respect that.”

  “She’s like the sister I never had, Seb. I don’t want to see her out in the street.”

  “She’s not going to. Don’t worry.”

  “I want you to take care of her, Seb.”

  “I am. She’s staying at the Blue Ocean Beach Villas. Who’s paying for that? Me. And she’s driving my Chevy. Oh. You’re welcome, Skye. How nice of you to acknowledge my generosity.”