Marriage Vows Under Fire Summer Love Series 2: Tender Rivalry. Lanette Zavala

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СКАЧАТЬ Bible, Natalie. So, I’m just sharing with you what I learned from reading. Jesus got into it with the Pharisees all the time for their self-righteousness. He wanted them to see their sinfulness and their pitiful need for salvation. And they wouldn’t do it.”

      “So, you’re comparing me to the Pharisees?” Natalie snapped as she snatched her hands from his.

      Joseph paused and landed his sincere brown eyes one her. Finally, he swallowed hard before replying, “Yes.”

      “Why would you tell me something like this?

      “Because I care.”

      Natalie scoffed. What she had long ago suspected in her annoyance was painfully confirmed, she realized. “I could never give my heart to Joe Junior,” she told herself.

      * * *

      1991

      The breath-taking musical melody through her headphones could capture the moment as a long-lasting memory. It promised a lifetime of sweet nostalgia. The thought of marrying the guy of her dreams was almost too good to be true. A few soft self-inflicted pinches convinced her that her dream was reality.

      In the course of her tender thoughts, a strange one also occurred in the back of her mind. Her wonderful ride on cloud nine couldn’t prevent her from scolding herself – just slightly. Just a hint of resentment tempted her. But it couldn’t possibly be directed at him. She shook the feeling – seemingly for the second time within the twenty-something hours of their arrival across the border.

      Ranked as the top academic junior-class student in the business college at Bayou City Tech University, she knew she had far more sense than she had chosen to use since agreeing to the trip. But since high school, she had a wild streak – one that entertained her college beau.

      And all her friends, including her sisterly roommate back on campus…They would surely call her a fool for crossing the border with the campus goof ball, whom she had dated for only five months. For accepting his impulsive marriage proposal, they would probably swat her. Not one of her friends could see what she saw in the chubby guy who warmed her heart every second she spent with him. She herself wondered if her perpetual quest for the danger, excitement, and laughter he always gave her had finally gone over the top.

      Whether that was truly the case, she couldn’t see how it mattered. She was in love. And though she never would have imagined that he would shock her with a proposal – even one to be performed under the foreign government during Spring Break – she couldn’t imagine telling him “no.” What if such a small resemblance of rejection could impose a risk of losing him?

      As if her thoughts could spill into the pit of her stomach from an unsettled mind, she could feel a flood of pain imposing on the moment of hope and anticipation. Everything that appeared beautiful in the tropical setting, where other college students freely toured in flocks, intimidated her. She felt out of place. She knew nobody there except the one person responsible for convincing her to go and his wise-cracking friend, who didn’t seem sober just an hour ago.

      “Where is he?” She wondered desperately. Sitting in the lobby of the small hotel, where it seemed no employed citizen working there in that country could help her with directions, she observed her surroundings nervously. She pulled the earphones from her ears.

      Her sudden awareness that she was in a foreign land to invest her heart in the promise of a guy, whom she had only known since one month before dating him and who had constantly proven his immaturity to her, frightened her. But she sensed that she wasn’t alone – not in the area and not in her doubts. The familiar face a few feet from her suddenly became a clear sight.

      She frowned. The beautiful petite Latina was familiar to her. “Do I know you from campus?”

      * * *

      “Are you still going through with it?”

      “Yeah…You?”

      “Huh? I told you, Man. I’m not backing out after coming this far. A deal’s a deal.”

      “It ain’t a dude, deal. Uh…It ain’t…a…deal…Dude. It’s more like a stupid dare.”

      The college buddies playfully shoved each other in uncontrollable laughter. One stumbled until he almost landed forward. But the other caught him and raised him up.

      “You’re gonna have to sober up before you get to that altar, Bro.”

      “No way, Man. That’s…the point of this here…This…Hey! Where’s my bottle?”

      “I tossed it. Look, you’ve got to pull yourself together for this.”

      “How do I do that? I’m getting ma-! Oh…”

      “No, don’t url again!”

      “Where’s my bucket?”

      “Oh no…Well, look at it this way. We’re almost at the finish line. After we complete this famous ‘Hitch Initiation’, we’ll be ready to cross over, and we’ll be frat brothers.”

      The muscular college junior bent over with his face buried almost completely in the bucket. He just didn’t care that others passing by them in the garden likely noticed the scene he caused in his drunken stupor.

      “We’ll be married to them this evening and be annulled by next week right before we cross over.”

      “I’m not crossing over! Oh! Uh! I quit.”

      “You can’t quit! That’s the booze talking.”

      “No…That’s…my conscience talking. We’re playing with their hearts, Man! We get married, get annulled, and get rewarded with loyal…ugh…brotherhood to a group who’ll stop at nothing to prove that an organization is worth all…Uh!”

      “Wow, you’ve never sounded so…deep. Maybe you should drink more often.”

      “No! I felt like this since finding out they want to marry me off to…to…I forget her name.”

      “Hey, I feel guilty, too. But that doesn’t mean we break up with them. I could see if the initiation was to get us hitched with strangers. Besides, Jesse and Carlos are in the same boat with us. Where are they, by the way? Trey and the whole line had to do this two years ago. Two of the couples are still dating after they got annulled.”

      “Only two! Man, girls don’t easily forgive this kind of junk! And I don’t wanna risk losing what’s her name!” He sniffled with a trembling voice.

      “Well, don’t cry, now. Let’s just get it over with. The girls will understand after we explain it. You’ll feel like a real frat brother by the end of next week.”

      “No, I won’t. I’ll feel hazed.”

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