Meeting Mr. Right. Deb Kastner

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СКАЧАТЬ meant any harm. In most cases, he’d been able to charm his way back into being friends. But any attempt to charm Vee only seemed to make her angrier.

      Vee was a tough nut to crack. She intimidated him with the way she pulled her hair back into a stark bun that defined her cheekbones into sharp lines, not to mention the incessant way she was always scowling at him with a permanent frown etched into her features whenever he was around. That he’d gotten her to laugh once or twice during their exchange the night before was definitely the exception to the rule. Maybe he was making some progress.

      “Progress” just made him think of the other projects in his life—like his plans for mission work, for example, and the online Spanish class he was taking to prepare.

      But most of all, he thought about the plans to meet and hopefully date his beautiful Veronica Jayne.

      No one in Serendipity knew of the developing relationship with his internet classmate. Not his paramedic partner Zach Bowden. Not his friends. Not even his parents. He supposed that deep down he just wasn’t ready to share her yet.

      What a sweet secret to have.

      Ben grinned to himself as he reached the one and only intersection off of Main Street, glanced both ways and crossed over to the other side. Serendipity, with its population of less than a thousand, didn’t even merit a stoplight and just barely bothered with three-way stop signs. There was seldom traffic to watch out for, and today was no exception.

      In fact, it was an unremarkably quiet day in Serendipity, with most folks going about their business as usual. Even the three retired men in their matching bib overalls who usually congregated in front of Emerson’s Hardware in their wooden rocking chairs were nowhere to be seen.

      With nothing interesting to view on the horizon, Ben’s mind shifted to Veronica Jayne and the unlikely development of their cyber relationship. It had started innocently enough, emailing each other back and forth about their combined class project. After a while the conversation had drifted to chattering about weekly assignments, and before he knew it, they were talking personal issues—sometimes very personal issues, especially when they’d discovered they had the same plans for stateside mission work.

      He’d been praying for his future wife for some time now, and if he was being honest with himself, the thought that Veronica Jayne might be that woman had crossed his mind more than once, even if they’d agreed they wouldn’t pursue anything romantic until—and if—they met in person.

      Frankly, it was easier keeping Veronica Jayne at a distance, on the other end of cyberspace, where he wasn’t as apt to screw things up. He didn’t exactly have a stellar track record where women were concerned.

      He’d been a skinny, awkward teenager who was often embarrassed and humiliated by school bullies, a boy who hid in his uncle’s auto garage to avoid having to deal with his callous peers, never mind girls his age, who would either ridicule or ignore him. Girls simply weren’t interested in boys like him. His mother had told him not to worry, that his day would come, but he hadn’t believed her.

      Then, in a desperate attempt to get away from everything and everyone he knew, he’d enlisted in the Army National Guard Reserves. He’d bulked up and put on a uniform, and that had changed everything. He’d returned to Serendipity to find the women—those same girls who’d thumbed their noses at him in his youth—all grown up and fawning over him.

      He was the first to admit he hadn’t handled it very well. What could he say? He was a guy, and the attention of pretty ladies went straight to his head. Being as inexperienced as he was in the world of women, he knew he’d made quite a few mistakes along the way.

      How was he supposed to know that after two or three dates, a girl would assume that they were dating exclusively and that he wasn’t seeing anyone else? He hadn’t even been looking for a serious relationship—not then, anyway—despite the impression he’d apparently given. He’d quickly learned that women had certain ideas in their heads, and they weren’t very forgiving when he didn’t catch their unspoken implications.

      Which he rarely did. He didn’t know how to guess how a woman thought. He hadn’t known then, and he certainly didn’t know now.

      No, he’d had enough of all that, thank you very much. Perhaps that was why the idea of finding someone outside Serendipity sounded so appealing to him. Someone who didn’t know what he’d been like as a kid. Someone unaware of his recent screw-ups in the love department.

      If he left Serendipity, he could reinvent himself into anything he wanted to be. A tough guy or a dashing charmer. Sensitive or daring. It was a heady notion. But there was more to it than that. He truly felt called to make a difference on a scale he could never achieve in his small hometown. He wanted to get involved in difficult and often perilous stateside mission work, perfect for an adrenaline junkie like him who wanted to be part of an organization that ministered to people, body and soul.

      At times he even dared to imagine the possibility of having a classy, incredible woman working at his side—a strong, independent, caring, Christian woman ready and able to both handle the worst and pray for the best.

      It wasn’t completely beyond the realm of possibility that this woman was Veronica Jayne. In their emails, her dreams and future plans and goals matched his, and their personalities melded perfectly, each playing off the other’s strengths.

      But that was online.

      Reality? Well, that was probably nothing more than empty space. Would he even know her if he passed by her on the street? Would they connect on that kind of level?

      He was almost certainly grasping at straws. If anything ever did happen between them, and that was a big if, Veronica Jayne eventually would learn everything about him—including his past, which he was still ashamed to think about. Then there was the fact that he had perpetual grease under his nails from working as a mechanic. And the fact that he lived in a miniscule Texas town—he had the impression, though she’d never stated outright, that she lived in a big city.

      If he took her home, his mother would no doubt bring out his baby pictures and his yearbook, which would only serve to further humiliate him. One look and Veronica Jayne would discover what a gawky, pimple-covered youth he’d been. Too tall for his skinny physique and all elbows and knees.

      He wasn’t sure he was ready for that. Anyway, he was getting way ahead of himself. They’d never met in person. Who knew if they’d even like each other when that time came, much less in any kind of romantic capacity? He must be getting soft in the head.

      The moment he rounded the corner onto his parents’ cul-de-sac, he noticed the black truck parked in his parents’ driveway. The back end was loaded with red bricks and multi-colored rocks of various shapes and sizes and bags upon bags of soil and fertilizer. It wasn’t an old truck, but it wasn’t a new one either. It had some wear—definitely a sensible working vehicle. And though it looked vaguely familiar, he couldn’t immediately put a name to the owner. He was fairly certain he hadn’t serviced it at the auto shop recently, yet he could picture the vehicle in his mind, sans contents. So where did he know it from?

      One way to find out.

      He heard someone singing before he even reached the front porch. More telling, it was a female singing, or humming rather, and it definitely wasn’t his good, old-fashioned country mother, unless she’d developed a sudden propensity for something that sounded suspiciously like classical music to Ben’s untrained ears.

      Instead of approaching the front door, his curiosity led him around СКАЧАТЬ