Retreat (Balm in Gilead Book 3) Read online

  “Cecily?” he prompted. “Who was he? What happened?”

  Her shoulders slumped, and she dropped her eyes as she admitted, “He never made a move. He wasn’t interested in me that way.”

  “So what happened?”

  “We opened Balm in Gilead together, and then he retired and I bought him out.”

  Zeke was clearly surprised by this admission. He’d obviously never imagined she would have had a crush on her old business partner.

  Cecily felt stupid and so young for her feelings back then even though she knew they’d been natural, typical. Fred Pierson had been twenty-five years older than her, but he’d been single and brilliant and personable and attractive in that older-man way.

  “Him?”

  Cecily had to chuckle. “Yes, him. There’s no accounting for taste, right? It didn’t matter that he was so much older than me. I really thought something would happen.”

  “So did you open this place with him because you—”

  “No, no. I’d already realized it was never going to happen by then. Balm in Gilead was something I really wanted to do. I’d talked with him a lot about the idea of a place like it, and he thought it was a good idea and helped me work out the details. He put up most of the money, and I did most of the work. It was a good partnership while it lasted. And by then I wasn’t nursing a crush on him anymore.”

  Zeke nodded, proof that he was listening, but he didn’t say anything. He was clearly thinking through everything he’d told her.

  “So do you think I’m really stupid?” she asked at last, wanting to hear what was going on in his mind.

  “Of course not,” he snapped. “Why would I?”

  “I don’t know. You’re not saying anything.”

  He shook his head. “You’re not stupid. Except if you were going to have a crush on a guy you could never get, why did he have to be an old man?”

  She burst into laughter, pleased when Zeke finally laughed with her.

  ***

  When they finished eating, they went for a walk on the beach. They didn’t talk much, but the silence was comfortable, almost intimate. Cecily kind of wanted to hold hands with Zeke, but she didn’t have the courage to reach for his hand.

  It felt like something that he should initiate.

  He didn’t. And he didn’t kiss her either.

  In fact, as they were driving back home, she was starting to get a little worried. The date had been good. Really good. Their conversation and time together had been real and deep and meaningful.

  But surely he wanted to touch her a little.

  Surely she hadn’t imagined the chemistry between them.

  She told herself not to be impatient or unreasonable. It wasn’t like they could spend the whole evening making out.

  But a little kiss wouldn’t be unreasonable—surely.

  He’d kissed her yesterday and had seemed to like it.

  She’d liked it too.

  Very much.

  He parked the truck in his parking space and then walked with her through a side entrance and down the hall to her apartment. No one was in sight as she unlocked her door.

  She turned back to smile at Zeke. “Thanks for tonight. It was… it was great. I really enjoyed it.”

  “Me too,” he grunted.

  She waited for just a moment and then gave a little nod. “Good night.”

  “Cecily.”

  She turned her head at the sound of his gruff voice.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” She tried to smile but then stopped trying to pretend. “You could kiss me, you know,” she said a little tartly. “If you wanted to.”

  He stared at her for a moment and then made a sound in his throat. He reached out to cup her face with both hands and leaned into a kiss.

  It started gently—just a brush of his lips—but it didn’t last long that way. Soon she’d opened her mouth to his tongue, and he’d pressed her into the door with the hard line of his body.

  Her head was spinning, and her fingers were digging into his back. She gasped against his lips, wondering how she’d been so foolish as to think he hadn’t wanted to touch her.

  It was like he’d blazed into flames in her arms.

  “I was trying to be careful,” he rasped, his lips still pressing little kisses against her mouth, her skin.

  “Why?” Her voice was broken as pleasure and need throbbed with the speed of her heartbeat.

  “Because one day, when I kiss you, I’m not going to be able to stop.” He leaned his forehead against hers, panting audibly. He still had her trapped against her door.

  “Oh,” she managed to say. “Right.”

  “Good night, Cecily.”

  “Good night.”

  He moved one arm so she could slip out of his embrace, and then she stretched up to press one more little kiss on the corner of his mouth. Then she opened her door, stepped inside, and closed it again without turning back.

  She knew Zeke was standing there, hot and tense and turned on and staring at her like he would eat her alive.

  She felt a little like that herself.

  And she really liked it.

  ***

  Nine days later, Cecily was sitting in her normal row at church. Zeke was beside her.

  They weren’t really there together. They’d come separately, as they always did. Cecily came early for Sunday school, which Zeke never attended. Then she’d taken her usual seat and had seen Zeke enter the sanctuary at about five minutes until ten when the service began.

  He’d been coming to this church as long as Cecily had. It was the largest one in the area, and the preaching and teaching were solid. He normally sat on the same side of the sanctuary as Cecily but a few rows behind her.

  This week, his eyes had met hers as soon as he’d entered, and then he came over to her and wordlessly sat down beside her.

  It made Cecily feel young and jittery—that way she thought she had outgrown. To be sitting in church next to a man. It felt like everyone should notice, should come over and ask what was going on between the two of them.

  But no one did.

  No one seemed to see anything unusual about their sitting together.

  They worked together, after all. Zeke wasn’t touching her—he didn’t have his arm around her, he wasn’t holding her hand—and so everyone probably assumed they just happened to be sitting together.

  It was a relief and a disappointment at exactly the same time.

  She and Zeke had never had a conversation about telling other people about their dating. She assumed she was free to tell whomever she wanted—as was he—but the only person she’d told was her sister. She didn’t think Zeke had told anyone. He didn’t really have anyone to tell.

  In a way, it felt safer. To keep this just to themselves. As soon as the church and her circle of friends caught wind of it, there would be talk, questions, gossip, covert observation. It was a lot of pressure that would be annoying—and wasn’t really necessary since they hadn’t made any commitments.

  They had a month. It was a kind of safety zone. Nothing had to really change until the month was over.

  Better for them to keep it to themselves.

  She was sure Zeke felt the same way. He never wanted anyone prying into his business, after all. And he wasn’t even talking to her now. He was just sitting beside her, looking at the front where the worship leader was about to start the first song.

  They sat together for the entire service and didn’t speak or touch at all. But Cecily was acutely aware of him beside her—the heat from his body, the sound of his breathing, his occasional shifting in the seat, the way the dark hair on his forearms looked against his tanned skin, the way the fabric at the knees of his trousers was getting thin.

  He was a real man—not a fantasy of a boyfriend from her mind—and it felt so strange that he wanted to sit beside her.

  When the service ended and everyone stood up and started filing out of their rows to
leave, Cecily looked at Zeke squarely for the first time since he’d arrived.

  He gave her a little twitch of a smile through his beard.

  She smiled back.

  They’d spent the previous evening together, driving down the Outer Banks to a cute, out-of-the-way restaurant she’d never been to before. Then they’d stopped for ice cream and a walk on the beach before they returned home.

  He’d kissed her again after he’d walked her to her door. He’d pressed her against the wall and kissed her until her head was spinning and her body was pulsing.

  He’d been into the kiss too. She’d felt it in his body. Neither of them had wanted to pull away, although they had.

  She was about to say something—just something casual since neither of them had spoken since he’d sat down beside her—when Mary Turner came over, pushing through the crowds of people to reach Cecily.

  Cecily knew what she wanted even before Mary asked her if she wanted to help again this year with the Fall Festival, which the church had every year at the end of October.

  “Sure,” Cecily said with a polite smile. “Just put me down for anything, as long as it doesn’t involve crowd control. I’m no good at that.”

  “I’ll probably give you a booth, like you had last year.”

  “Perfect.”

  “You’re always so great about helping out, and it’s nice that you don’t try to cherry-pick the best positions.” Mary turned toward Zeke, who was still standing in the row with Cecily. “What about you? Any chance of helping out this year? We can use all the help we can get.”

  Cecily didn’t know if Zeke had ever been asked before to volunteer. She knew for sure he’d never accepted. He never did anything with the church except attend every Sunday and put a check in the offering plate. She imagined most people had stopped asking him for more years ago.

  Some people didn’t like him—they thought he was rude or bad-tempered. And other people were intimidated by him.

  Those people didn’t know him at all.

  Zeke grunted in response to Mary’s question. The sound didn’t form a clear word, but it sounded like a negative to Cecily.

  “Maybe you should,” she said softly, thinking how much better it would be for Zeke if he would try to get involved with other people instead of always being so isolated. “Since you won’t have work to do at Balm in Gilead this year.”

  His blue eyes shot over to her with a look that wasn’t at all happy.

  Mary looked hopeful. “Oh, it would be great if you could. We could really use some big guys to haul stuff around.”

  Zeke’s gaze moved from Mary to Cecily and back. “I’ll check and get back to you.”

  Zeke didn’t have anything in his schedule. He never had anything in his schedule except for work, which he wouldn’t be doing for almost three more weeks. He was just trying to stall and get out of the conversation.

  But Mary looked happy that it wasn’t an outright rejection, and she said she’d check in with Zeke later in the week to confirm.

  Zeke gave Cecily a cold look before he started to walk out of the sanctuary.

  Cecily stared after him. He’d turned his back on her intentionally. He was annoyed with her.

  For absolutely no good reason.

  She followed him.

  She couldn’t catch up with him quickly because of the crowd leaving the church building. She got waylaid by a friend of hers, who wanted her to come to a book talk next week, so Zeke was in the parking lot, opening the door to his truck, when Cecily managed to catch up with him.

  “Zeke!” she called, hurrying as fast as she could in her heels and fitted skirt. “Wait.”

  He turned toward her, his truck door open. He didn’t say anything, but he waited until she was standing in front of him.

  “Are you angry with me?” she asked.

  He gave her another cold look.

  “Seriously?” She had to catch her breath from chasing him, so she took a minute before she continued. “You’re angry with me? For that?”

  “I don’t want to be pushed into things.”

  She almost choked on her surprise. “Pushed into things? I didn’t push you into anything. I just suggested it wouldn’t be a bad idea to help out. You’re saying I’m not allowed to do that?”

  “You’re allowed to do anything you want. But I am who I am, and I don’t appreciate being pressured into being someone else just because we’re dating.”

  She’d been surprised and frustrated before, but now she was getting more than that. She’d never met a more infuriating man. What was wrong with him that he’d react this way to something so little? “You’re crazy! I didn’t do anything close to pressuring you! What are you even talking about?”

  “So you weren’t trying to get me to help out with that festival?” He was still angry. His muscles were tense, and his jaw was clenched.

  “I just suggested it wouldn’t be a bad idea. And you know it wouldn’t be. You just don’t want to do it, and you know in your heart that it’s wrong, so you’re taking it out on me.” Because she’d lost her patience, she was snapping out the words, without thinking them through the way she normally did.

  “I’m taking what out on you?” he growled.

  “The guilt.”

  “What guilt?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about, so don’t act dumb. If you felt any pressure back there, it wasn’t from me. It was from your conscience. You know very well that we’re called to be in community, and you’ve been running away from it for years. If you want to keep doing it, that’s your business. Do whatever you want! But don’t act like I’m pushing you into something just by making a suggestion. Any pressure you feel isn’t from me!”

  Zeke opened his mouth but then closed it again. He was almost shaking from anger or frustration or something.

  She waited for him to reply, but he didn’t.

  He got into his truck and turned it on.

  She stood there in the parking lot, staring at him, as he backed out of his place and drove away.

  And she couldn’t remember ever in her life wanting to shake someone as much as she wanted to shake him.

  ***

  She had lunch with an elderly widow who was a friend of hers and tried to act normal, but she kept thinking about Zeke, kept getting angry about their argument and his irrational response to it.

  When she got back home, she changed into leggings and a long tunic top and decided to cocoon herself for the rest of the day. She wasn’t going to worry about Zeke. She wasn’t going to brood about what this argument meant. She wasn’t going to stress about whether it meant her relationship with him was already over.

  She wasn’t going to think about him at all.

  She sat on her couch and watched Jane Austen movies and pretended not to think about Zeke.

  At dinnertime, however, she was feeling less angry and more guilty.

  She didn’t think she’d done anything wrong, but she was starting to see why Zeke might have misunderstood her suggestion. If she’d reacted less defensively, they probably could have worked this out without a blowup.

  She was still annoyed with him, but she was also starting to feel bad about it.

  She finished her second movie of the afternoon and then made some soup and garlic bread. By the time she’d put the bread in the oven, she couldn’t stand it anymore.

  She needed to talk to Zeke.

  She slipped on a pair of shoes and went to the door, swinging it open before she could change her mind.

  Zeke was standing in the hallway. He hadn’t knocked. He was just staring at her door.

  She blinked in surprise.

  He blinked too.

  “I was just coming to see you,” she said when she found her voice.

  “I was just about to knock.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly.

  “Oh.”

  “I acted like an ass.”

  A deep, shudderi
ng emotion tightened in her chest. She gave him a wobbly smile. “I’m sorry too.”

  “What are you sorry for?” he demanded, pulling his eyebrows together.

  “I got mad at you.”

  “I deserved it.”

  She couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, I’m sorry anyway.”

  “I called up Mary and told her I would help out.”

  Cecily sucked in a breath at this blunt assertion. “You did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t want you to do that for me, you know. I really wasn’t trying to pressure you.”

  “I know.” He paused before he added, “I didn’t do it just for you.”

  She understood what lay beneath the words. He’d known she was right. He was doing it for him. He was trying to change for the better. Washed with a wave of sappy emotion, she asked, “Do you want to come in?”

  He nodded and she stepped aside to let him in. He looked around at the blanket on the couch, the television screen that displayed the streaming channel, and the kitchenette area with the pot of soup on the stove.

  “I was going to eat soup and watch another Jane Austen movie,” she explained. “You can join me if you want.”

  “Does it have to be Jane Austen?” That little gleam was in his eyes again, the one that proved that he knew her, he liked her, he wanted to spend time with her.

  It made Cecily so happy she almost hugged herself. “Yes, it does.”

  “All right,” he said with exaggerated resignation. “As long as you don’t mind snide commentary.”

  “I’ll live with it.”

  So they sat on her couch and ate soup and bread and drank wine as they watched the movie. Zeke was true to his word and offered a constant running commentary of snide observations. Cecily argued with this whenever necessary but didn’t mind it at all.

  It turned out to be a really good night.

  ***

  That Friday, Zeke and Cecily drove down the coast and took the ferry over to Ocracoke. They had a good time looking around in the shops and stopping at three different places to eat. Since their argument on Sunday, Cecily felt even closer to Zeke, and if his behavior and the look in his eyes was anything to go on, he felt the same way.

  For the first time, Cecily was starting to let herself really hope.