Zenith in Love (Zenith Series #5) - Leanne Davis Page 0,17

you….”

“Don’t,” he replied softly.

“No.”

He glanced at her again. “Well, thank you. For noticing. Thinking of me.”

She sighed. “Was that so hard?”

His mouth twitched. “It surprisingly was actually.”

She threw up her hands, incredulous over what he said. She thought he would say it wasn’t. “Why? Do you really think so little of me? Aren’t you supposed to see the best in people and all that? I mean, there are far worse people than me.”

“Not many are personally so rude to me. In fact, you’re the only one. But you’re right, in the grand scheme of things, you’re not that bad. It didn’t occur to me you’d care about my feelings over this, I guess.” He sighed, downed his drink and set the glass on the floor as he leaned back, sagging further into the couch. Folding his arms, he continued, “I knew you weren’t on my side. You didn’t want me marrying your sister. So I always suspected you bad-mouthed me to her. I knew you were the one who Kathy confided in. She quotes you a lot.”

“She does? I would have sworn she never listened to me.”

“Oh, she listened. She knew she was naïve and you weren’t. I thought you were working to destroy us from your place as her confidante. I obviously knew you disliked me and didn’t approve of us. Or want her to marry me. I would picture all the things you told her. Things you might plant in her head to notice about me. So I guess I disliked you at first. A lot.”

“I never did any of that. No, that’s not true. I did question her when she told me you never did more than kiss her. I gently offered my advice, as it was Kathy, and said perhaps the shared celibacy thing until marriage was a bit extreme for two people in love.”

His jaw ticked. “We agreed to abide by certain traditional beliefs.”

“Yes.” She didn’t mean to get bogged down in this particular conversation. But here they were. “I get what you both wanted. You wanted to wait until you were married. But it seemed like there should be some type of sexual temptation to break that promise. Maybe not even breaking it, just a desire to break it. Since neither of you seemed to find it hard to keep your celibacy, I worried that either one or both of you were not really in love.”

“Obviously, she wasn’t, so you were right,” Jim scoffed bitterly.

“And…” she continued as if he hadn’t rudely interjected, “vice versa. I wondered the same thing about you towards her. That part was never personal but I wanted Kathy to be happy and fulfilled. If you were the one who made her happy, I’d have made my peace with it. I would have ignored how I felt about you personally and sucked it all up because I was so happy for her. I always supported her choices. But I didn’t get that feeling from her. So I gently nudged her to notice and think about her decision before she committed to it. If she decided the lack of chemistry between you two was something she wanted, I’d have shut my mouth. If she decided she could not be with Eric, I would have shut up too. So you’re wrong, I never bad-mouthed or undermined you.”

“I always thought you did.”

“I can see why but I didn’t.” She finished her drink and the warmth flowed through all of her. “And to be honest, I think you liked our constant clashes. I think you liked telling me what you really thought. No, I think you loved sparring with me. I think it’s the closest you came to revealing yourself to anyone around here, Kathy included. Even she doesn’t know the real you, does she? Who you are when you’re not being Pastor Jim?”

“I don’t fake my persona. Your sarcastic Pastor Jim stuff? That is me.”

“Oh. Yes. You’re right. Part of you. But what about the other part? I was the dog on your whipping post. The person you could let all your stress out on. The constant tasks of being so formal, polite, and good. You know, Pastor Jim. But I think I got to know just Jim.”

He lifted and turned his head to study her as she spoke. She swallowed her odd feelings that climbed up her throat and left her in a lump of nerves. As she spoke, she realized the truth. She got the honest Jim, also the grumpy, rude,