Hitting the Right Note (24 page)

Sydney was right. No matter how lost they all were, they had one thing in common. God was waiting to bring them all home.

“O
kay, so where are we going now?” JJ asked as Simon took the Jeep on the ramp to the 404 north.

“To dinner,” Simon said, resting his free hand on the armrest between them.

“Isn't it a bit early?” JJ asked. “It's barely four. Plus I'd like to go to dinner in something more dressed up than shorts and a peasant top.”

“We won't be eating right away. And as for what you're wearing . . .” JJ watched his eyes run the length of her form, then his mouth tilted into a smile. “You look fine to me.”

“Keep your eyes on the road, mister,” she said, even though a smile was pulling at her own lips.

“I'll try, but you don't make it easy.”

The easy banter flowed between them as they headed north of the city and slightly east. When JJ saw signs for Uxbridge, she began to suspect what was going on.

“You're taking me to your home, aren't you?” JJ said, sitting up suddenly.

He glanced over at her slyly. “Maybe.”

“Wow, I get to see the home of Dr. Simon Massri. I'm intrigued,” JJ said, rubbing her palms together.

He chuckled. “Well, you showed me yours, so I guess I should show you mine.”

His place wasn't huge, but it was wide. The bungalow-style house sat comfortably among the shelter of tall black-cherry trees, which JJ knew had to be older than both of them. Wide steps led up to a wraparound porch, anchored at the corners by stacked stone pillars. Two huge windows balanced a wooden, screened door that led to the inside. She couldn't wait to see what was beyond those doors. What she had already seen gave her a peek at another side of Simon.

“This is beautiful,” she breathed as she walked ahead of him to the front door.

“Thanks,” Simon said.

She had caught him watching her first reactions to his place and suspected that what she thought about it would be important to him. He had nothing to worry about. She was liking what she saw.

When he opened the front door and she stepped inside, she decided she loved it. The house had a chalet feel to it. The floor was made of lighter stained wood, and the same wood was used to panel the walls from the floor almost halfway to the ceiling. The ceiling itself was constructed of exposed wooden beams from which hung the lighting fixtures.

Standing in the living room, she could turn in a full circle and see almost the whole house. Large, but still managing to pull off a cozy feel. Cabin-like, but completely livable. When she finished her 360-degree examination, she was face-to-face with Simon.

“Well?” he asked. “What do you think?”

JJ couldn't really tell him what she thought—that she loved the house so much that she was ready to kick off her shoes and spend the rest of her vacation curled up on the soft couch that faced the huge picture windows and glass doors.

“I love it,” JJ said, beaming. “It's nothing like I imagined a doctor's house to be. But it's exactly who you are.”

She sighed and glanced around again. “All it needs is a vegetable garden around the back to be complete.”

He smiled and took her hand. “Come with me, Miss Isaacs.”

JJ let him lead her through the dining room to the screened-in deck, and out the doors that led to the backyard. When JJ stepped outside, she felt like she had stepped into another world. Whereas the front of the yard was shadowed by trees, the backyard opened up into a large grassy field, with enough open space for JJ to run free and turn cartwheels.

Her toes itched for it, and so she slipped out of her shoes and took off skipping through the grass. Memories of her early teen years, of summers spent at her grandmother's home in rural Ontario, came back to her.

“Having fun, Pippi Longstocking?” Simon called as he walked toward her.

She grinned. “You have no idea.”

“Good.” He grinned. “But if we want to eat, we have work to do.”

He nodded toward the only structure within sight behind the house, a box-shaped, shiny gray building. When they got close enough, she realized that the structure was not gray, but made of glass. And when Simon opened the doors and let her inside, she realized exactly what it was.

“You have a greenhouse?” JJ squeaked.

Simon nodded. “This way I can grow the vegetables I want, throughout the year.”

She shook her head. “Simon Massri, you never stop surprising me.”

He slipped an arm around her. “Good.” He planted a kiss in her hair. “I like to keep it interesting.”

“You certainly do that,” JJ said, leaning against him. “So is this where we're going to pick our dinner?”

“That's right,” he said. “This is what we're going to need.”

He began to name ingredients, some JJ was familiar with and others she would need help finding. With the basket he had found for her, she wandered through the rows of plants, picking out the vegetables they needed while he adjusted the temperature and checked hydration.

JJ couldn't believe how big the greenhouse was and how many varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and beans Simon had going. She wondered when he found time to take care of them, and who did it when he was away.

“Judith.” Simon put his hand on her shoulder and turned her around. “Taste this.”

She opened her mouth and took a bite of the small tomato he held out to her. It was sweet. Sweeter than any tomato she had tasted in a long time. And fresh in a way that she couldn't describe.

“Oh, this is good,” JJ said, pulling his wrist close so she could take another bite. “You grew these?”

“From seeds,” Simon said proudly. “Could you ever go back to supermarket tomatoes after these?”

“Are you kidding me?” JJ asked. “I haven't had supermarket tomatoes in years. Sydney would kill me. But these taste even better than the ones we get from the market.”

“No pesticides, and organic fertilizer,” Simon said. “Did you get everything on our list?”

JJ grimaced. “Except the mushrooms. They look kinda scary.”

Simon chuckled and pulled JJ back over to the area where clusters of mushrooms were growing.

“There's nothing to be scared of,” he said, pulling a knife from his pocket and stooping down.

“I don't know,” JJ said, peering over his shoulder. “They look like the stuff that used to grow on the rotting wood near the back of my grandma's yard.”

“Those you shouldn't eat. But these,” Simon said, cutting off a few near the base, “will taste great.”

“I'll take your word for it, hon,” JJ said, holding the basket out for him to drop them in. Produce in hand, they made the trek back to the house and into the kitchen. JJ grabbed a seat on a stool by the counter, content to watch Simon work until he needed her. But before she could settle in too comfortably, he set her to work washing and cutting up vegetables.

“How do you find time to tend all those plants?” JJ asked. “In fact, before you answer all that, when did you even buy this house, seeing that you are almost never in one place.”

“I got this place the same time my parents moved here,” Simon said. “My mom insisted that I have somewhere of my own where I could leave all my stuff, instead of storing it in boxes at their house.”

JJ laughed. “Like permanent storage space?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Simon said, pulling pasta from the fridge. “Since my parents seem to have decided that they want to settle and retire here, this seemed like the place to do it. This way at least I have a place near them, so if anything happens, they're not out in the cold.”

“Sounds like you're protective of them.”

Simon shrugged. “Someone has to be.”

“So back to the when-do-you-find-time-for-the-garden thing.”

“Everyone has a hobby, Judith,” he said, reaching around her for a pot. “This is mine. It relaxes me, so I make time for it. And when I am away, my cousin stays here and takes care of the place and the garden for me.”

JJ nodded. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, then went back to slicing the mushrooms.

“Don't you ever get tired of the constant traveling?” she asked without looking at him. “I mean, do you ever plan to, I guess, settle down?”

There was silence behind her, and for a while she wondered if he had heard her question.

“I don't know,” he said after a long moment. “Sure, I get tired of it sometimes. I could live the rest of my life without eating another restaurant meal, and if I could find a way to travel without sitting in airports for hours, I'd do it. But I like what I do. I like the people I get to help. And I've never had a reason to ‘settle down,' as you put it.”

He stopped moving and JJ turned away from the cutting board to look at him.

“Honestly,” he said, “this is my house, but right now that's all it is—a house. If I ended up in South Sudan and felt like it was where I wanted to spend the rest of my life, I would give this up in a heartbeat. I guess I'm just waiting on something to make somewhere feel like home—somewhere that I really want to come back to.”

JJ turned around and began slicing again. “Who's Elena?”

She heard something fall behind her, but she didn't dare turn around. She could feel Simon's eyes burning holes into her back, but she would rather feel them than see them, so she kept chopping.

“What did Nigel tell you?”

“Nothing,” JJ said. “Except that she was very important to you.”

“She was,” Simon said.

She heard cupboards open and knew he had gone back to what he was doing. So he wasn't going to tell her. That was fine. The truth was, she probably shouldn't have brought it up in the first place. If their relationship had been as serious as Nigel had suggested, she should have waited for Simon to broach the topic. But she couldn't not ask—not after everything Simon had said about not having a reason to settle down or a place that felt like home.

“We were engaged.”

JJ turned around to look at him, surprised that after the lengthy pause he had chosen to continue. Instead of looking at her, he was placing another pot on the stove. He tipped in some olive oil then scraped in some cloves of garlic.

“I met her while I was in Ecuador,” he continued. “She was an Oxfam ambassador working in a community near where I was stationed. I was supposed to be there for only six months, but after we started spending time together, well, it stretched out into a year. She extended her term with her project also, so our commitment to each other was mutual. Or so I thought.”

“What happened?” JJ asked. She had abandoned her mushrooms completely to hear the story.

“Onions?”

She handed him the plate with chopped onions.

“I asked her to marry me,” Simon said. “She said yes. My parents were back in London at the time, so I took her there and she met the whole family. They loved her. My mom especially, 'cause they shared the same background. Then we went to Ireland and met her family. That went great too. Everything seemed to be going great. Mushrooms?”

JJ handed him the plate of mushrooms. He glanced at the plate and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Bigger chunks, more flavor,” JJ explained.

He smiled and shook his head before scraping them into the sizzling pot. The delicious aroma of the garlic filled JJ's senses and triggered her hunger center.

“How soon till dinner?” JJ asked, eyeing the pot longingly.

“Soon,” he said.

“Okay.” JJ pulled out a knife and a long loaf of thick, crusty bread. “I'll make the garlic bread. Tell me the rest of this story.”

He nodded. “I had to go back to Ecuador to finish up, and she was supposed to join me. She was a week late, and when she finally got there, things were off. After weeks of probing, she finally told me that there was someone else her parents had intended for her to marry, and that they were pressuring her. I was floored. I hadn't suspected anything like that when I met her parents, and she had never mentioned this other guy before.

“From there, things just kept going downhill. She would tell me nothing had changed, she still wanted to get married, but then she kept stalling on the wedding plans, trying to push the date. When she finally called it off, I wasn't surprised. It hurt. But I'd had a feeling.”

“I'm sorry, Simon,” JJ said as she watched him check the pasta, grate cheese, and do anything to keep from looking at her.

“Yeah,” Simon said. “She got married a couple months after that. I saw her brother not long after, and he told me.”

JJ grimaced as she laid the bread on a baking tray. “Yeah. That must have been hard.”

“It just made me more skeptical, you know?” Simon said. “People can tell you they love you, tell you they want to be with you, but sometimes the words and what's real are not the same. How can you really know that people mean what they say?”

“I guess that's what love is about,” JJ said, slipping the tray into the oven. “It's taking that risk. Nigel told me you hardly date anymore. Is that why?”

“When did you and Nigel have all these conversations?” Simon asked, throwing a questioning look at her. “Should I be jealous?”

“Not even a little,” JJ said, wiping the crumbs from the countertop. “I just wanted to know who you are, and sometimes I felt like I couldn't crack the surface.”

Simon added tomatoes to the pot. “I guess I do hold back a bit. That's what makes me bad in dating situations. Plus there's the whole celibacy thing, and the whole traveling thing. They don't exactly make me the ideal boyfriend for most women.”