The bionic music started in my head. There were many things I wanted to say to him, but we had thirty minutes before opening and we weren’t alone. I kissed his forehead, too, leaving a heart-shaped print of coral lipstick behind. He wore it like a crown. I waved toward my sister. “Dahlia, take a load off and come and sit with us real quick before we open.”
She moved cautiously, reaching us just as the candle’s aroma reached full swell. Daddy’s triple-thick pineapple shakes with warm berries and whipped cream and a drizzle of orange juice slid across my mind. My sister’s favorite. I hugged her with my free arm. “I appreciate everything you’ve done here.”
“But it’s time for me to go, huh?”
Adrian answered before I could say a word. “Basically. I hired you at Kick! to help you out, but it’s become—”
“Confusing?” she offered.
He laughed a little. “Yeah, that.”
Here I was all ready to love up on my sister instead of firing her, like I wanted to for so long, and she decides to leave on her own. God was funny like that. Sometimes He just needs to know you’re willing.
Dahlia started for the door. “Funny, I was going to quit today and I didn’t know how to tell you two. I was praying about it all morning. I have an idea of my own for a business. I’m going to go for it.”
I sighed, this time in a good way. “You do that.”
“We’re here for you,” Adrian said. “We’ll miss your skills.”
He’d better not miss anything else. As my sister let herself out and the new customers in—who’d seen the whole exchange but seemed to be growing used to our weirdness—I turned to Adrian and took another sniff. “Rename that. Island Wedding just doesn’t do it justice. That stuff smells like peace, pure and simple.”
Adrian smiled. “Peace it is. For them anyway. It’ll always be Island Wedding to me. It’s what my dreams smell like.”
By noon, I’d come up with a whole new line of peace products—body gloss, bath milk and scented eye pillows. Maybe I’d even have Tracey design some scented drawer liners…Anything to keep my mind off what I would say to Adrian, who gave me the puppy dog look every few minutes. It was going to be a long lunch.
Unable to wait that long, Adrian assisted the last morning customer, flipping the closed sign behind her and pulling down the blinds.
“What are you doing?” In all the time he’d been here, I’d never seen him close during business hours even if nobody came through. He believed a business should be open during its scheduled hours. Period.
The next blind fluttered down. “I’m conducting real business. Something I should have done a long time ago.”
I swallowed hard, trying to sort through the determination and regret battling in his voice. Before I could sort out my thoughts, he snuffed all the candles but one, which he grabbed before dragging me to the back room.
He pulled out my chair and set a tall white pillar with gold chunks on a pewter saucer between us. He trimmed the wick to almost a nub and lit the flame, his eyes focused on the flickering light and then on me. “I need to tell you something.”
“Wait. I—”
“Please.” His voice was firm. “Let me get it out.”
Realizing that he needed to receive forgiveness as much as I needed to give it, I sank back into my chair for the second time in one week and listened to a tale of seduction, sin and sorrow. Only this time, it was much harder to hear. Adrian hung his head as he told of his baby Christian pride and how he’d allowed himself to be alone with Dahlia in hopes of “ministering” to her. And that’s just what she had done, but to him instead.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Yeah, right.”
I nodded. God had really helped me restrain my emotions in the past few years—a little anyway—but back then? Who knows what I might have done? And he had been a snob about his spirituality. I’d considered myself a Christian and he’d gotten on my nerves. Jesus makes all the difference. “But Sandy? Why get married?”
He dropped into the chair and leaned over, his elbows gouging his thighs. His head rolled into his palms. “When I got up from that bed with Dahlia, it was like I’d killed somebody. Murdered something. How could I face you? Face your mother? Your father?” He stiffened. “I