Cinderella in Overalls - By Carol Grace Page 0,7
ignore them? Thank God she hadn’t confided in Jacinda about the truck. Let her think the tall stranger was a rich, generous banker. She would never know that the man who caused the electricity in the air was the one who stood between than and the truck they needed.
Let Jacinda hang on to her illusions. Catherine had none left.
Chapter Two
On the Fourth of July the American flag fluttered against a clear blue sky high above the embassy. By the time Catherine arrived, a softball game was in progress behind the main residence and cheers filled the air. The smell of hot dogs sizzling on an outdoor grill led her through the crowd toward tables festooned with red, white and blue streamers and laden with crisp salads and fresh fruit. She accepted a glass of champagne from a waiter and stepped back to admire an enormous ice sculpture of a swan in the middle of the table.
“Just like home,” a deep voice observed dryly from over Catherine’s shoulder. She tightened the grip on her glass. She didn’t have to turn around to know that the voice belonged to Josh Bentley. She could pretend she didn’t hear him and walk away, but she turned and looked. He wasn’t wearing his three-piece banker’s suit. He was wearing tan slacks and a blue polo shirt that somehow erased the image of the stuffy banker she’d been harboring in her mind. It didn’t change the fact that he was a stuffy banker, she reminded herself sternly; he just didn’t look like one.
So much for avoiding the one person she had come here to avoid. She’d barely arrived and here she was staring at him, wondering if it was just the clothes that made him look more accessible, or the atmosphere or the way his eyes darkened to match the color of his shirt. Like a chameleon.
She was working up her nerve to ask him again for a loan. She would have to humble herself, but for a truck, for the village ... it was worth it.
“Not like my home,” she said lightly. “We don’t go in for ice sculptures in Tranquility. Especially on the Fourth of July. It’s about a hundred degrees this time of year.”
“Tranquility,” he repeated, his eyes taking in her sandals, her denim skirt and the contours of her T-shirt.
“Have you heard of it?” she asked incredulously.
He shook his head and rocked back on his heels, then reached for a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. “Could we sit down somewhere and talk? I had an idea after you left my office the other day.” He was rewarded with a tentative smile that encouraged him all out of proportion to the situation. He didn’t tell her that he had a lot of ideas after she left his office, and most of them had nothing to do with the truck.
With his hand resting lightly on her back they threaded their way through crowds of American expatriates in bright shirts and shorts to a table under a drooping willow tree. She sat in a white lawn chair and looked up at him, her lips parted slightly, her eyes wide and curious. She had unbraided her hair today, and it curled and waved around her face in a dark cloud.
“Is it about the truck?” she asked. “Did you change your mind? Did you decide that one small loan to a group of farm women wouldn’t raise the rate of inflation significantly?”
“No. But I think I can get the money for you in another way. In the form of a contribution. It’s better than a loan. You won’t have to pay it back. It would be a gift.”
“A gift? They don’t need a gift. They need a loan. They want to be part of the real world. Where people borrow money and pay it back. I want them to feel comfortable walking into a bank and knowing what to do. Writing checks and balancing an account. I know they can do it if someone will give them a chance. A small loan, just enough to buy a truck. They need the truck, but even more they need to be a part of the system.”
He was startled. He’d expected a smile that would light up the embassy grounds, or tears of gratitude. But she sat stiffly in her chair, her hands in her lap.
“It seemed like a good idea... at the time,” he said evenly.
“It was kind of you to think of it, or whoever thought