Hope Between the Pages, Pepper Basham [best ebook reader android .txt] 📗

He lifted his gaze to hers, allowing their mutual admissions to pearl over the space between them.

So much had changed since the first day they’d met. Unexpectedly, and fast. Somehow, from their conversations and budding friendship, he’d found a place in her life and…her heart? She kept being reminded of the C. S. Lewis quote, “Friendship is born in that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too?’”

“I know you’re disappointed we didn’t locate the deed today, so perhaps it would help to recount what you know about Oliver and Sadie so far to give us a fresh perspective on other possible places to search,” Max said.

“I think Oliver must have been in love with Sadie. They met at Biltmore through books?”

“An excellent way to meet.” Max saluted with his cup.

“True.” Clara nodded her agreement. “And then he bought her Blackwell’s but was waiting for the deed to be finalized, so all we have is a letter about the purchase. Do you think he died before the deed arrived? Did the deed come here, or to Biltmore?”

“And did Sadie travel here, which seems quite possible? Marry Oliver?”

A question that had bothered Clara too. “If they were married, why did she keep her last name?”

He took a drink, his focus down. “I think we’ll learn something helpful tomorrow.” Clara’s gaze rose to his. “What do you know?”

“It’s a surprise. After church tomorrow.”

The flutter in her stomach stilled. “Surprise, is it?”

“Do you trust me?” He held her gaze.

She narrowed her eyes, allowing enough pause to dissolve his humor before answering. “Yes.” Her grin flared. “But I have to be back by tomorrow evening because your mom is going to teach me how to make her famous red velvet cake.”

“She’s truly enjoyed getting to know you.” He stood, reaching for Clara’s dessert plate, so Clara followed suit by carrying her cup to the kitchen. “Now, teaching you her famous cake? That’s a definite sign you’re one of her favorites.”

“She’s easy to like and so happy here.”

“She’s happy now.” He leaned against the counter, folding his arms across his chest. “But it took several years after the accident to get her back.”

Clara slid a step closer, waiting for him to divulge more.

“She hasn’t told you?”

“Only that your dad died in a car accident.”

He rinsed off the dishes and Clara moved beside him to help with the drying, waiting. “We were coming home from visiting some friends. My older sister, Angelica, had recently left for her first mission trip to Africa, so it was only me and my parents. A truck came out of nowhere and slammed into us on the driver’s side.”

Clara’s hands froze on the plate she was drying, her stomach clenched in anticipation.

“I pulled Mum from the car. She was unconscious. When I opened my father’s door, an explosion knocked me back. I was able to turn my head, but I couldn’t get away in time.”

Her attention slid over his scars. Burns.

“I never lost consciousness and was left standing by a burning car with a mother who was unconscious and the knowledge that my father was dead. Then I was separated from Mum while doctors attempted to salvage what they could of the left side of my face, and I didn’t know if she survived or not.” He shook his head and handed her another dish. “I’ve never felt so alone, so helpless.”

Clara took the plate from him, hoping her expression shone with the understanding she felt. Standing by her father’s deathbed and trying to keep her mother from becoming physically distraught had been the most difficult moments of her life.

“I understood God’s presence then, as I never had before.” He chose one of their teacups to clean next. “There was this indescribable and overwhelming sense of—”

“Comfort,” she whispered.

His gaze lingered in hers. “Yes.”

How was it possible to care so deeply for—to understand— someone she hadn’t even known a week? It was all well and good in fairy tales, those were fairy tales, but here? In the real world?

He tilted his head closer and for an instant, she thought he meant to kiss her. And she, in that same instant, hoped he would. Time crawled to a stop. The air grew thick. Her attention flickered from his lips to his amber eyes.

“Would you care to dance?”

She tugged her thoughts from the idea of his lips on hers and coughed. “What?”

A rush of red darkened his face and he looked away. “W–would you care to dance…with me?”

Clara snapped her lips closed and worked words through her throat. “Without music?”

His smile resurrected and his eyes took on an added twinkle. “That, I can fix.”

And he did, choosing none other than Tony Bennett to croon through the living room. Clara swooned from the knees upward. A dashing man in a bow tie who loved his family, books, gardening, and Bennett…and he was slipping his arm around her waist to dance with her? How was she supposed to come up with a coherent sentence for the next ten minutes or possibly hours?

His hand closed around hers and they moved in synchrony, his fresh scent of cardamom and firewood teasing her closer. His palm moved more securely against her back. His gentleness, his touch, sweetly intoxicating.

“I haven’t danced with someone in a while,” she murmured, closing her eyes to enjoy the warmth of his touch.

“Do you usually dance alone?”

His teasing words, so near her ear, pearled tingles in their wake. “Almost daily.”

She felt his chuckle more than heard it.

“But…but I prefer this to dancing alone.” Had she spoken her thoughts aloud?

Her body tensed, but he quickly adjusted and tugged her a little closer. “I prefer this to you dancing alone too.”

Like the slow hand of a pendulum rocking forward, each step drew them closer, until she rested her chin against his shoulder, and everything clicked into place. Here. With him.

“Clara.”

“Mmhmm,” she murmured into the comfort of his shoulder.

His silence pulled her attention up.

“What you said at the lake, about seeing me?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Her