LITMIR.BIZ

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met the girl next door.”

      “Oh, Elle?”

      Whoever Elle was, she made Ephraim jerk up from his paper. Interesting. “Nope. Must be the neighbor on the other side.”

      “Oh, sure. Rebecca.” Ephraim’s attention went back to the business section. “She moved in a few months ago. I think she’s renting the place from her sister. That’s about all I know. She’s a graduate student, in, ah…can’t remember what she told me. English, maybe?

      “Why, you interested?” Ephraim turned the page with a newspapery crinkle.

      Chad shrugged. Since he valued honesty, silence was the best policy. He polished off his cereal, slurped the dregs of the milk and loaded the bowl and spoon into the dishwasher. Just in time, too, judging by the clock. “I’m outta here.”

      “Want to swing by for tacos tonight?” Ephraim’s attention hadn’t returned to his paper. “I highly recommend Mr. Paco’s Tacos for their nachos.”

      “See you there around five?” Chad grabbed his keys from the counter. His sneakers squeaked on the linoleum as he headed to the door.

      “She’s got a boyfriend.” Ephraim’s words brought him to a screeching halt.

      “A boyfriend?” Chad pounded back into the kitchen. Hadn’t Rebecca said she didn’t have one? He distinctly remembered it.

      “Or, at least she had one.”

      Yep, that was it. He had to remind himself to act casual. “She might have mentioned that.”

      “The guy wasn’t so nice. Now I remember.” Ephraim folded up his newspaper, as if he were planning to take it to work with him. “There was an incident a while back. Her big brother—and I’m talking this guy is big—came and hauled the boyfriend out into the parking lot and held him until the cops came.”

      “You mean, like he tried to hurt her?”

      “I don’t know. Maybe. It was a bad scene. It’s too bad, too, because she’s a nice girl. A great neighbor. Quiet, and I hardly ever see her.”

      All bonuses to quiet, bookish Ephraim. Chad’s guts tightened up. He got a bad feeling, and he didn’t like it. He loathed guys who thought it was okay to control women. Sure, he knew what it was like to make a mistake, but he’d been fifteen at the time and he had been hurt the most. Not that that was justification—he’d learned his lesson, he’d paid for his crime and he was a different man now. “She wasn’t hurt, was she?”

      “No, I would have remembered that.” Ephraim stood and lifted his briefcase from the floor, where it leaned against the wall already packed for the workday. “She didn’t deserve that. No one is nicer. My car was in the shop a while back and she let me ride with her to church and even dropped me off at work and school for a few days.”

      That sounded like his impression of her. Chad juggled the keys in his hand, considering. He didn’t dare say more. It was best to go slow on this, get to know her more, figure out if he had a chance at all with her first. He’d had a few hard rejections over the past three years, so it wasn’t as if he were going to ask her out or anything. Maybe it was worth getting up his courage to get to know her. He’d pray on it.

      Not that he wanted Ephraim, or anyone to know how he felt about things. He headed to the door. “I’ll see ya tonight.”

      “Sure.”

      When the garage door chugged open, he was greeted with rain falling from a slate sky. Not the best weather for day camp. As he navigated the short distance to the gray stone church on a pleasant tree-lined street, he sure hoped Pastor Marin had a lot of indoor activities planned or his first day as a counselor would be a challenge. Not that he minded challenges, he thought as he pulled into the lot and into the first available space he came to.

      Well, this was it. Rain dappled him as he locked up. The doors to one of the auxiliary buildings behind the church were opened wide to welcome the day campers in out of the weather. He caught sight of two women standing beneath the awning, with clipboards in hand.

      One of them, squinting at him in surprise, was his gorgeous next-door neighbor, Rebecca McKaslin.

      Chapter Three

      Rebecca couldn’t believe her eyes. Chad Lawson strode through the gray sheets of rain in the parking lot like a hero through the mist. He seemed untouched by the downpour and unruffled by the wind. Something about him made him appear extraordinary. Simply from seeing him, from having him near, the stress of the morning slid from her shoulders like rain from the roof.

      No one, except her family members, had ever made her feel so calm.

      Marin, the church’s youth pastor, leaned close, so her voice wouldn’t carry. “Here’s someone I want you to meet, now that you’re a free and single woman.”

      Uh-oh. “Why does everyone think I need to start dating?”

      “Because you deserve a great guy to love you, that’s why. And speaking of one—”

      Rebecca rolled her eyes. Good grief. Marin’s newlywed happiness had sadly affected her brain. She loved her pastor, but Marin was looking at relationships through rose-colored glasses. And why wouldn’t she? She was blissfully happy. All it took was one look to see it.

      Good for her, right? Rebecca firmly denied any wistful feelings. Some people were just especially blessed in the love department. How could they understand someone who wasn’t?

      Visions of Marin’s future matchmaking efforts flashed before Rebecca’s eyes. Time to do damage control before that could possibly happen. She had to be clear, firm and assertive. “I’m not interested.”

      “That sounds like a snap decision to me. Maybe you want to think about it.” Marin looked so sure about that.

      And why wouldn’t she be? Any single woman in her right mind would want to think about Chad Lawson. And wasn’t that just the problem? She had a No Man policy. It was safer. It was smarter. “I refuse to think about it.”

      “You never know, he could be the right man for you.”

      “Yeah, but more likely he isn’t. No matter how great he is, because that’s my luck.” Rebecca rolled her eyes. Just what she needed, her pastor, who was also one of her sister’s best friends trying to set her up. “I’m on a vacation from romance of any kind.”

      “A vacation? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

      “Like you didn’t date for a long time?”

      “Yeah, well it was different for me. I wasn’t on vacation as much as I couldn’t catch anyone. Until my Jeremy came along, of course. Just because you split up with Chris and it didn’t end well, that doesn’t mean you should rule out dating forever and ever—”

      “And this coming from the woman who dubbed the different phases of dating, one of them being, the doom phase.”

      “That was before I met Jeremy.”

      “Excuses, excuses. Believe me, I’m sure about this. Now he’s coming closer, so—” Rebecca didn’t know how to say it kindly. “No more romance talk. We’ve got kids coming in a few minutes.”

      “Sure. Fine. I can take a hint.” Marin was smiling a little too widely to be believable.

      What was she going to do with everyone? What did she have to do to convince them that she really was fine? Well, as fine as she could be?

      Rebecca focused on her clipboard, aware of the slight slap of Chad’s steps coming closer. Marin meant well, sure, but she had forgotten what it was like to be single and wish things were different. To wish you, yourself, were different.

      She managed what she hoped was a bright welcome. “Chad. I’m pretty shocked to see you bright and early on a Monday morning. You’re not a member, are you?”

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