The Doctor's Unexpected Family: (Inspirational Romance) (Port Provident: Hurricane Hope) (18 page)

Pete hesitated as he turned through the gate of the RV park. He wondered if he should turn around. Maybe she just wanted to be left alone. Would he be making things worse by stopping by?

He saw Angela sitting on the step to the door of her RV. As his headlights splashed on the ground near her, she looked up.

Too late. She’d noticed him. He couldn’t turn around now. Well, if she didn’t want to listen to what he had to say—then he’d just turn around and leave. He would respect her wishes, if that’s what it came to. That was part of love. Doing what was right for the other person, even when it was hard.

He parked the truck near her trailer and pulled out the box he’d brought with him.

“I brought a housewarming gift. I picked out some things from The Grace Space. Thought you might could use some dishes and such for your kitchen. I didn’t know if they stocked these trailers with anything to help you get started.” Pete placed the box at her feet.

“I owe you an apology,” she said softly.

“I owe you one, too. I shouldn’t have said what I did. I spoke from the heart, but I’m not a parent. I can’t really speak on those kinds of decisions.” Pete continued to stand a few feet back, unsure of whether or not his presence was going to be welcome.

Angela looked past Pete. “I can hear the waves from here. It reminds me of sitting up on the deck at your house. A lot reminds me of you these days. I shouldn’t have left like I did. You’ve been nothing but generous to me and Celina. I thought I was protecting Celina by leaving so I wouldn’t run into you and have to continue our conversation from the beach. But instead, I was acting in a way I’d never let my six-year-old act.”

“You had your reasons.”

She laughed a little. “Well, yeah, but they were the wrong ones. You cared enough to be honest with me and to speak what was on your mind. And I was afraid of it, so I ran off.”

Angela leaned over and looked inside of the box Pete had placed near her feet, then continued her deliberate train of thought. “David came back to town today, like we agreed on Monday. We had lunch. I didn’t really want to listen to what he had to say, like I didn’t want to listen to what you had to say. Until one word caught my ear. He said he was hopeful that he could make things right. It reminded me of what you said, about the hope—the good—that could come out of Hurricane Hope. I felt like God was trying to get my attention by having you both say the same thing.”

“And?” Pete wanted her to speed up the careful pace of her words. He was beginning to have a little more hope himself.

Angela exhaled noticeably. “And so I had Emmy bring Celina to the beach after lunch so she could meet David. They made sand castles.”

Pete’s first thought was about the little girl he’d grown to care for. “What did Celina think of it all?”

Angela looked straight at Pete for the first time since he’d walked up. Her complexion was slightly yellow, tinted by the glow of the street light overhead. “It was just another day at the office to her. She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t judge. She just accepted it—and David. When I asked her about it at bedtime tonight—I wanted to know how she felt about David and being told she had siblings, of a sort—she told me she thought it was a good thing because you can never have too many people who care about you.”

“What a smart kid.” Pete’s heart warmed at hearing the little girl’s wisdom.

“You know, she’s right.” Angela stood up from the step and took two steps forward. Pete could smell the mountain floral scent of the detergent that had washed the T-shirt she was wearing. “You can never have too many people in your life who care about you. I’ve been so busy for so long that I haven’t had many people like that in my life. I have my family. I have my daughter. I have a handful of close friends, mostly from
La Iglesia
. But they’re all the same people who have been there for years. I don’t seem to cultivate new friendships easily. I’ve focused instead on raising my daughter and building my role at City Hall. And then a hurricane blew you into my life. And I realized there’s someone in my life I truly care about. He cares about my daughter.”

She took one step closer and lifted her arms, letting them come to rest around Pete’s neck.

“And I hope he cares about me.”

Her breath tickled his lips. Her words were exactly what he needed to hear in order to lose his heart.

 “He does.”

Pete had been trained to make life-and-death, split-second decisions. He relied on that instinct and let his mouth connect with hers, bringing them together with all the blaze of those shooting stars they’d watched on his deck. Then, they’d come so close—but they’d stayed apart.

Now, nothing was keeping him from the taste of her, from the scent of her, from the feel of her as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her in.

An ocean breeze picked at her hair, stirring tendrils across both his cheek and his hand. The breeze wrapped around them like a frame, giving a border to this moment in time—a moment he would never forget.

When at last they pulled away from the kiss, Pete waited to see if they would pull away from each other. They didn’t—she kept her forearms resting lightly at the curve of his shoulders and he let his hands linger at the top flare of her hips.

As he’d arrived earlier, Pete had been worried that Angela wouldn’t let him stay.

Now he worried he’d never want to leave.

Angela smiled to herself as she walked up the steps to Pete’s deck Friday night.

“Pete! We’re here! And Brownie the Bear came too!” Celina decided to take the steps two at a time, practically sprinting up to where Pete stood next to his grill.

Pete leaned down and gave Celina a big bear hug and lifted her off the ground so she kicked her toes and squealed. He was doing all the right things, but Angela could tell something was not quite right.

“What’s the matter?”

Pete looked up at her, a lopsided half-frown showing in the middle of the beard stubble.

“I still hadn’t heard back from Mercy Medical Mission, so I decided to call on my way home today and follow up on my paperwork. I was connected to someone in Human Resources and after a few minutes of conversation, she told me that they’re not accepting new applications right now and they’re not planning to do any new placements until early next year.”

Angela sat down the bag of chips she’d brought for dinner. The grocery store on the island had just reopened yesterday and although they weren’t fully stocked yet, it felt good to do something normal, like buy a bag of salty, crunchy potato chips. Her mouth watered just thinking about opening the bag and biting into a chip.

“I thought you’d been told your application was pretty much a formality and they had a place to put you.”

“That is what I was told, too. I know quite a few people there, some pretty high up in the organization. More than one person told me there was a place for me.” He continued to bounce Celina, but Angela could tell his mind was bouncing too. He seemed far away from the wooden deck with the soul-calming views.

“Well, maybe it was a mistake. Maybe this person didn’t really know. You work with insurance companies—surely you’ve talked to plenty of customer service representatives who don’t have a clue what the real deal is.”

He cracked a smile. “You got me there. But no, this was the head of HR. She’s in charge of all the hiring. She said they’re not doing any right now, period.”

Celina broke in the conversation to ask if she could go inside and play her favorite dance video game. Pete agreed and the little girl ran off at a rabbit-quick pace.

“So what are you going to do now?” Angela came up close behind him as he laid hamburger patties on the grate of the hot grill. “Maybe you could re-open the clinic?”

“No, that’s a done deal. I signed paperwork yesterday to put the clinic on the market. A friend of mine who is a real estate agent knows a developer who is buying distressed properties like mine to fix up and flip. Melissa Miller thinks she can have it sold by next week.”

“Oh. So you wouldn’t be staying, regardless?” Angela thought of that kiss at her temporary trailer, of how he fit in Celina’s life with such natural ease…and of how she’d caught herself doodling a heart in the upper corner of a briefing paper she’d been given during a meeting this morning.

She wasn’t the type to doodle. And she wasn’t the type to easily fall in love. In fact, she’d only done that one other time, and she’d spent the last six years telling herself she had no interest in repeating how that turned out.

Fleetingly, she wondered if an acting mayor could command a citizen to stay in town?

The very idea had too many shades of Henry VIII manipulating his court. This wouldn’t be a viable option. And besides, she would feel like a complete idiot for trying to convince someone to alter their life based on one kiss. Rational people didn’t do that. And she had to stay rational. While meeting Pete in the wake of the hurricane was a nice distraction, the fact of the matter was she didn’t need to be distracted. She was now the mayor of Port Provident, Texas. She had almost fifty thousand people looking to her to lead and rebuild their city. They weren’t looking for her profile on a dating website.

“Well, actually, there’s been a development there.” Pete lowered the lid on the grill and turned to face Angela.

She felt her heart do a little bounce and it surprised her. She had never been the bouncing heart type. Not until she met a doctor who cared about her daughter and her city as much as she did.

“What do you mean?” Angela couldn’t contain her curiosity, but tried to hold her hope in check.

“Do you know Jake Peoples? The Peoples Family Foundation?”

Angela nodded. “They’ve been around for generations. I think everyone knows Jake and his family. But what does Jake have to do with you staying in Port Provident?”

“He came to visit me at The Grace Space the other day. His grandmother likes the concept of what we’re doing and wants The Grace Space to become a permanent fixture in Port Provident. He handed me a check and a contract for a suitable piece of real estate if I wanted to stay and make it happen. That’s why I called Mercy Medical Mission today. I have a deadline to let Jake know one way or the other.”

“So you’d consider running The Grace Space full time?” She had to pull even harder to keep her hope from floating up like a balloon.

Pete gestured to the Adirondack chairs nearby and took a seat. Angela followed him.

“Well, that’s where I’d like your opinion.”

That bouncing heart feeling came back. All day long, Angela was asked for her opinion on things. It was part of being mayor. But coming from Pete, this request seemed to carry a whole different type of weight. She tried to not get ahead of herself—but the little flutter persisted.

“Okay, shoot.” She tried to stay monosyllabic so she could sound calm.

“Well, what would you think of that? If I stayed?”

Angela knew exactly what she’d think, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to reveal those thoughts to Pete yet. She hardly felt comfortable revealing them to herself.

She decided on the diplomatic, mayoral route. “I think Port Provident would be a better place if you stayed. We can use people like you here.”

“Angela.” His voice was firm. “I didn’t ask for the mayor’s opinion. I asked what you would think. I think there’s something here between us. I’ve felt it grow and I felt it Wednesday night, and I think you do too. I want to know if I’m right. Do you want me to stay? Do you think there’s anything to build between us?”

Pete’s straightforward line of questioning stripped all the fluff, all the bravado out of the words she had been trying to use.

Hurricane Hope had torn through Port Provident, stripping away all the basics of the town and left those who called it home no choice but to take what was left and build and make things better.

Angela looked Pete straight in his flint-and-steel-colored eyes. Hurricane Hope had brought him into her life, too. And her feelings on the future with him were no different than the feelings she had regarding her city.

The only choice was to build.

The longer she hesitated, the more she carefully couched her words, the more time would be wasted. She only had one answer.