The Doctor's Unexpected Family: (Inspirational Romance) (Port Provident: Hurricane Hope) (13 page)

She felt a flash of grateful tears well up. It was quickly joined by a lump in her throat.

And then Angela looked to the left again and her very breath was snatched from her lungs.

Dr. Pete Shipley leaned against a pole, dressed in a white coat and scrubs.  He looked completely relaxed, but completely in charge. She’d never seen him dressed like a doctor before. But if she wasn’t careful, she’d get caught staring.

As she mentally chastised herself to do something—anything—but think of shooting stars and cornflower-blue scrubs, Pete noticed her, gave a wave, and took off in her direction at a quick jog.

“So? What do you think?”

The eager tone in his voice reminded her of Celina at Christmastime. All hope, all anticipation, all joy.

“It looks amazing. I was just taking it all in. I can’t believe how you’ve taken truckloads of random goods and some saltwater-soaked church furniture and turned it into this.”

Pete quickly cocked one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Well, I can’t take all the credit. Some amazing folks from the church and the hospital have worked right alongside me.”

To underscore his point, four or five people milled around the aisles, straightening and making last minute touch-ups.

“So, are we ready to go cut a ribbon?” Pete gestured toward the door with one hand and touched his hand again to the small of her back with the other, gently guiding her.

Angela nodded then looked up at the ceiling. She could have sworn she saw a shooting star in the church. It seemed so real that she was almost tempted to make another wish. Instead, she decided a simple prayer would do…but would God understand why she was praying about Pete Shipley and not the former pews full of donated merchandise?

The day had been long, but everything had been worth it. The Grace Space opened to many grateful hands, the clinic saw twenty-two patients needing basic wellness checks, and the mayor had expressed her thanks to Pete and the team for seeing a need and pulling together a solution so quickly. All in all, the knowledge that today had done real, tangible good for Port Provident tugged at his heart.

The jangle of a bell signaled the opening of the front door, which was strange because Pete was sure he’d locked it up more than half an hour ago when the last volunteer left. The only reason he was still inside was because he was trying to give himself a little more time to process the memories of the day and finish his notes from the clinic cases.

“The Grace Space will reopen at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” Pete turned in the metal chair at the back of the room where he’d been transcribing his notes.

A petite tornado with dark brown hair rushed across the concrete floor. He could barely believe his eyes. He’d seen Angela smile, comfort her daughter, and even share a laugh or two with friends, but he hadn’t seen this kind of enthusiasm since that first quick hug in his living room the night they first talked about the temporary housing situation issues and the first steps toward creating The Grace Space.

Pete stood up, took three steps in her direction, and then was tackled by the force of her momentum colliding into him.

Instantly, he felt the spark. Whatever electricity she brought with her was transferring to him.

And he wanted more.

His arms reflexively wrapped around her shoulders, and he knew it was more about keeping her close than steadying her after the bounce after her body crashed into his.

“We did it!” Her voice came out as a shout and she threw her head back. The silk of her hair brushed his hands where they cupped the curve of her shoulder blades.

“Did what?”

“Everything is signed for the RV park. The first trailers will be moving in tomorrow. People can leave the shelters. They can have a place to call their own while they rebuild.” She gave a short jump. “Pete, you did it. Without your phone call to your friends, without making that connection, we wouldn’t have been able to pull this off so quickly. We were out of options. I don’t know what we would have done.”

She bounced again, and this time, Pete had ducked his head to look down at her. At the first feather-light touch of her lips on his, Pete felt the full shock of the electricity Angela had brought in the room with her.

He’d wanted more and he’d gotten it.

And he wasn’t going to give it up.

Pete pulled his forearms in a little more, pressing Angela closer to him, signaling without a word that their collision was no accident. Instead of pulling back as he’d half-expected her to, she tilted her head and deepened the moment.

Losing himself in the whisper of her hair over his fingers and the hush of her breath as it mixed with his own, he forgot everything until he remembered one thing.

His last kiss with Anna.

At the shock of the memory, his fingers went limp and fell from Angela’s shoulders. She pulled back as the bond of contact was lost.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” Angela said.

Pete bit the inside of his lip as he listened to her apologize. She might not have intended it, but he had. When he’d felt that first spark as she fell against him, he’d wanted to know what it was like to kiss her. He’d been thinking about it since she placed her hand on his chest on the deck when they talked underneath a sky of blazing stars.

“No, really, it’s okay.” He didn’t know what to say beyond that. He didn’t want her to feel like she’d made a mistake, but there was no way he could tell her that the memory of the woman that cancer had snatched from him caused him to back away.

He didn’t want to cause awkward second-guessing—she still lived in his studio apartment and there was no question they would run into each other. They still had The Grace Space project. And there was the connection on the temporary housing location as well. Everything needed to stay just as it was.

Speaking of all that, another question popped in his mind. “Are you going to move to the temporary housing space now?”

He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know the answer, but he was grateful for the distraction from the thoughts of Anna.

“I think so. I have a group of constituents who are on the list for the first round of trailers. If I move, I’ll be back in a location where I’m accessible to them.” She shifted her weight slightly onto her left foot. “Celina and I are very grateful for your hospitality in the little apartment, but it is way out there on the east end of the island. I should probably be closer in town, closer to my district.”

Pete nodded. “Oh, absolutely.”

He didn’t feel absolute about anything right now. Five minutes ago, he’d been on top of the world with the success of The Grace Space’s first day. Now, he was struggling with memories of the past and feelings he couldn’t name about the immediate future.

“There’s a community dinner tomorrow night at
Huarache’s
—you know, Gloria’s parents’ restaurant. You’re practically a resident of the
La Missión
neighborhood, now that you’ve spent so much time here at
La Iglesia
and have opened The Grace Space. You should really come. I know a lot of people really appreciate what you’ve done here and would like to thank you.”

He felt a tickle at the top curve of his ears and hoped they weren’t turning red. “No thanks necessary. I did what anyone would do.”

“No you didn’t, Pete. You did exactly what
you
would do. You had the time, but you also had the contacts to pull this off. And you have a heart for community-centered work, or you wouldn’t be counting down the days until that medical mission sends you off to some corner of the world. No one else could have pulled this off like you did, in the amount of time it took you to do it.” She raised an arm, hesitated slightly then patted his forearm. “Marco says that you’re
La Iglesia
’s Esther. You were sent here specifically ‘for such a time as this’.”

He didn’t know about that. He remembered Esther from Sunday School lessons as a kid. She saved a nation. He’d organized donated cookware and checked some blood pressure. He’d done what anyone would have done in the same situation.

Wouldn’t they have?

One thing he did know was the room grew uncomfortably quiet after Angela slipped out the door.  The gentle whirr of a donated window air conditioning unit was the only thing between him and a lot of thoughts he’d rather not think.

It was time to go home. Past time. Of course, home was now where Angela lived right under where he walked. At least for now.

He ducked back through the curtains that made the door to the clinic space to retrieve the bags he’d brought with him this morning. When he walked back out into the main sanctuary area that now made up the store, Pete saw he was not alone.

“
Buen trabajo
today, Pedro. Really good job. When I asked for your help in bringing some order to all these donations, I never would have envisioned this. It’s incredible—just what our community needs.” Marco looked squarely at Pete, scanning his face. “But you’re not happy. You’re troubled. Did something not go how you’d planned today?”

What a loaded question.

But there was no way he could answer Marco truthfully. They’d gotten to know each other while setting up The Grace Space and Pete felt really comfortable in the pastor’s presence. He was just a genuinely good guy—he saw the best in everything and everyone.

But Angela was his aunt—even though she was actually younger than Marco. You couldn’t just tell a guy you kissed his aunt and started thinking about your fiancée who died.

That would be the conversational equivalent of watching a patient flatline.

He decided it would be in everyone’s best interest to just wave it off, to deflect.

“Long day, Marco. One of those days that was all over the map.” That was accurate.
All over the map
was certainly the best way Pete could describe the thoughts in his head right now.

Marco crossed the room and sat down on one of the chairs close to Pete. “All the days lately have been long, Pedro. But that’s not what I see in your eyes. Something’s bothering you.”

“You should consider medical school, Marco. You’ve got a bedside manner that could get all sorts of information out of patients.”

The pastor rested his elbows on his knees. “It’s useful skill for pastors too. I guess you could call it pew-side manner.”

That made Pete chuckle. “That’s probably very true. But what do you do when you just can’t explain something? For most of what I do, there are answers. Especially the last few years while I’ve been managing the birthing center. We don’t have high-risk patients—we make sure those patients are under the care of obstetricians who manage their care through the hospital model. In my whole time there, we’ve only had a handful of non-emergency transfers, like when a mother has decided she’d rather get an epidural or she’s been in labor for too long and isn’t progressing and needs a drug like Pitocin, which requires the monitoring capabilities of a hospital. But mostly, I’ve found that the human body just knows how to give birth. It’s an instinctive, biological process.”

“But whatever’s on your mind isn’t a textbook case, Pedro?”

Pete lowered himself into the closest chair and faced Marco. Maybe he could talk to him after all. If he just kept it vague, maybe he could get it off his chest and go home without fear of running into Angela as he walked up the stairs to his part of the house.

Yeah, he’d just keep it vague. He didn’t have to bring Marco’s aunt into it at all.

“Something from my past has come up and I wasn’t expecting it.” Pete sat on the edge of his chair. He couldn’t get comfortable, in spite of his resolve to not give too many details.

“The past is powerful, Pedro. A lot of people will tell you to leave it there—ignore it, put it in a box. Move on.” His hands moved in a sweeping motion, illustrating the point. “But I don’t think that is what we’re meant to do.”

Pete looked down. He noticed his feet. Since Anna died, his unofficial motto had been to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep moving. Keep going. It gave his mind a fairly regular stream of new experiences and actions to focus on.

“Moving on is all I know, Pastor. “

 “But you’ve got to be moving
to
something, not just
from
something. Otherwise, you’re running a marathon with no plan. You’ll never reach the end,
hermano
.” The window unit rattled to life again and gave a punctuating squeal. “So, what are you running from?”

“Anna.” Her name fell off his lips with a thud. He’d thought about her, but he hadn’t actually spoken of her in years. To say her name again sounded unfamiliar and clumsy. “My fiancée. She died of cancer.”

Pete closed his eyes and leaned his head back. That answer was anything but vague. But he was tired. Tired of running. Tired of fearing the memory of the woman he had once loved.

“First, you’re not alone. Losing someone we love means losing the vision of the future we’d planned with them.” He reached out and patted Pete on the knee with a simple, reassuring touch. “But in Second Corinthians, we’re reminded that when the old things pass away, Christ makes all things new. God doesn’t just leave you with the old, with the memories. When I counsel people in situations like yours, I remind them that love is a gift. That person taught you how to love, how to feel. And in Heaven, they are experiencing eternal love. Love here on earth is an imperfect replica of God’s love in Heaven, but now that your Anna has experienced the fullness of love in Heaven, do you think she would want you to live without any love here?”