don’t know.” He realized he had answered far more honestly than he had intended. She seemed to be okay with his response, so he was more than happy to continue. “I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought I knew who I wanted, but instead of being the love of my life, she was my greatest disappointment.” He looked at her a moment before he continued. “And if it was just me, I guess I would have chalked it up to having chosen badly. Only, then I look at my father, and I start to think that maybe this is just how life is. He married three times before he moved here and gave up. I asked him once why New Hope? Why that town, that place, that house? And he had explained that he had come to find hope and stayed because while there was no way he was going to find true love, at least in his later years he had found peace. I guess for him, peace was enough.” He turned. He had said far more than he thought he would. And yet for Marti, it wasn’t quite enough.
“What do you think? Do you think you can find love?” She asked the question so gently that his heart very nearly hurt while considering it.
“I guess the answer is…that I thought I had. I dated a young woman. I was crazy about her. I told her and showed her how much I loved her every day in every way. And it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.” He walked over to the bench nearest the exit of the service department. They were alone and he was suddenly more acutely aware of that than he had been before. It was too quiet, too still. And he was too uncomfortable. “I don’t like talking about that time, or her.”
“I understand. So what was her name?” She looked at him completely without guile.
He could get lost in the depths of those bottomless chocolate eyes. Yet here she was badgering him. He had to give her credit, she was doing it so nicely that if he were a lesser man, he wouldn’t have even noticed. And for that he applauded her.
Before he had to divulge that last piece of information, the door opened and the salesman walked back in. “Let me sit down with you fine folks for a minute while we discuss the numbers.”
It was during the number discussion that Marti completely zoned out. She couldn’t do it. Numbers were never her thing. And now that she had to watch them so closely and wonder where more of these numbers on green treasury paper were going to come from, they were even more mystifying. It was one of those times she was glad to have a man around, even if he wasn’t her man, to handle all these incredibly tedious tasks. She had bigger and better things to worry about…like what radio stations were already preset and if the vehicle would need another coat of tint before it was comfortable to ride in the southern summer sun. All good aspects of vehicle ownership to consider.
Though he claimed to be ready to walk away, it took them three hours to do so. “That wasn’t bad,” he remarked as they drove away from the dealership in her cardboard temporary tags. “Look at that. And now you’re legal. You have a South Carolina tag and a home and tomorrow a license.”
“Why tomorrow?” She grumbled. “We should do something fun. We should go somewhere.” She thought for a moment. “Where should we go?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, princess. I have to work tomorrow.”
“Hey, last time I checked, I’m your employer. I say you need a day off.” She looked at him with a sparkle in her eye. “I am thinking…I’ve never been to Charleston. I hear…” her eyes positively gleamed with excitement, “that they have an aquarium!”
He thought about it for a moment. He had lived in Charlotte all his life, save the last few years where he was a half hour from there, and yet he had never been to Charleston or the aquarium. It was tempting.
“I was really good at the car dealership,” she reminded him. “Don’t I get a prize or something?”
“You did,” he teased. “Remember? You got…a new car!”
She laughed like he was the funniest person she had ever known. He didn’t know anything about her husband. For all he knew, he really was. And that made him feel special.