Free Chasing Sunsets by Karen Kingsbury Page B

what?”
    “For being in the moment. That’s one of the greatest gifts people can give each other. It’s like a lost art. Listening. Caring enough to look into someone’s eyes.” She couldn’t fall for him. Absolutely not. But she would be wrong not to express her gratitude. “Just . . . thanks.”
    “You’re welcome.” He looked happy with himself. “Maybe next time we have a conversation among friends you’ll look me in the eyes. The way you didn’t do today.”
    “I told you . . .” She giggled, not really frustrated.
    “I know . . . you didn’t want to seem too friendly. I’m dating Shelly. I get it.” He gave her a knowing look. “Let’s just say today at the center no one would’ve thought you even knew me.”
    “Good.” She kept a straight face. Much as she wanted to laugh, she needed him to know how serious she was. “I didn’t want to overstep my bounds.”
    “Obviously.” The quiet between them for the next few steps felt comfortable. Marcus looked at her a long time before his next question. “So is it a faith thing, your living dangerously? Jumping out of planes and swimming with sharks?”
    Her laughter felt wonderful. “Not sharks. Dolphins.”
    “Whatever.” He chuckled. “Really, Mary Catherine. Why?”
    The truth wasn’t something she was willing to talk about. Her doctor had told her anything that released too much adrenaline was bound to be hard on her heart. A quiet life, they told her. Keep to the house, the daily tasks and chores. Learning and reading were fine. A desk job, maybe. Anything out of the box would knock days off the life of her heart.
    Her mother had begged her to follow her doctor’s orders.
    Mary Catherine would rather have died young. She took a deep breath and imagined a way to explain all that without talking about her health. “There’s a Bible verse in John, chapter ten, verse ten.”
    He shook his head. “Don’t know it.”
    “Jesus is talking. He says, ‘I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.’ ” Her tone held a passion never far from the surface. “I figure if Jesus came to give me that sort of life, well, then . . . I might as well live it.”
    “Hmmm.” Marcus nodded. “Fair enough.”
    “How about you, Marcus Dillinger? You ever jump out of a plane or swim with dolphins?” She loved this, walking with him at midnight. This far up in the hills, the stars shone bright overhead, the moon a sliver in the sky.
    His laugh was quiet again. “Hardly.” He sighed. “For me it was baseball, baseball, baseball. My dad was a blond, blue-eyed ballplayer for the Giants back in the day. Played a few years and then got cut. He moved to the Bahamas to try to figure out his life and met the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.” He smiled. “That’s how he tells the story. My mom was just eighteen, six years younger than my dad. Born and raised in the Bahamas. They fell in love and got married six months later at a little white church in downtown Nassau. Right in the heart of the city.”
    Mary Catherine had figured one of Marcus’s parents must’ve been white. His light skin and eyes told her that much. But she had never heard his parents’ love story. “That’s beautiful.”
    “It was. My dad got a job in San Diego in computer engineering. He and my mom had me and two girls. Dad and I played ball all the time. He was one of my coaches. Believe it or not, I had a choice about playing baseball. He wasn’t one of those fathers.” Marcus grinned. “I just loved the game.”
    “So no time for planes and dolphins?” She could feel her eyes sparkling as she looked at him.
    “Exactly.”
    Their teasing made her feel like she’d known him all her life. He has a girlfriend ,she told herself. Don’t let yourself fall. “Hey, wait!”
    “What?” He looked intently at her. He had definitely perfected the art of being present.
    “I know that little white church. The one in Nassau. Is it on the main street,