Free Texas Weddings 3 & 4 by Janice Thompson Page B

in
Houston?”
    “Oh, forever,” she
exclaimed. “I’m a Texan, born and bred. What about you?”
    “I was born here in Houston,” he shared. “Lived on the north
end all of my life. A suburban kid. Everything about
my life was fairly typical until I hit my teens. That’s when my father passed
away.”
    “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Her eyes reflected genuine sympathy.
    “It was awful,” he acknowledged. “And unfortunately, I let
the incident drive me to do the wrong things. I turned to my friends for
support, and they were more than willing to show me their way of coping with
the pain.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I got involved with drinking and drugs. I. . .” his gazed shifted to the table. “The whole thing was awful. But everything
came to a head when I was involved in a car accident that could’ve killed me.”
    “Oh, Kent. . .”
    “I wasn’t driving,” he was quick to add, “but I might as
well have been. We all lived so close to the edge that it could have been any
one of us at any time. And when you’re hurting like I was, you just want the
pain to end. I guess in some way, I probably wanted to die back then.”
    “Wow.”
    “You’d think the accident would have been enough to set me
on the right course, but I didn’t give up some of my bad habits until my mom
remarried. My stepdad is great. And I didn’t realize how much I needed a male
role model until he came into the picture. God began to work on my heart about
that same time.”
    “You’ve been through so much.”
    “Yeah.” He shrugged. “I guess you could say I have a
‘testimony,’ but I still tell the kids in the youth group that the greatest
testimony of all is living a life for God—uninterrupted by the junk life
has to offer.”
    “Agreed.” She smiled warmly. “I guess you could say I have
that kind of testimony. I’m one of those kids who was raised in church and
loved the Lord from the time I was a little girl. Never really got involved in
drugs or anything like that.”
    “That’s wonderful.” Kent gave her an admiring look. “And that’s
exactly what I want for my daughter.” He paused for a moment before asking,
“You said you were born in Texas, but you didn’t say if you grew up here in
Houston.”
    Shauna laughed. “Yeah.
I loved it here as a kid. My parents were big on horseback riding and the
rodeo. What about you? Your family into the whole
country/western scene like most everyone else around here?”
    “Hardly,” he said with
a laugh. “My parents were into the opera, the symphony. The
arts, in general. My sister Jessica sings with the Dallas Metropolitan
Opera.
    “Wow.” Shauna gave him
a wide-eyed stare. “That’s amazing. I can’t sing a note.”
    “I sing a little,” he
said with a shrug. “And play the guitar. Just enough to occasionally lead
worship in the youth group.”
    “You’re a man of many
talents.”
    “I love good music,”
he explained. “And going to the theater—that kind of thing. But now that
I’ve got my daughter to think of things are changing a little. Her idea of
entertainment is an evening at Chuck E. Cheese followed by a cartoon video. Things
are shifting pretty rapidly around our place.”
    “I know what you
mean,” Shauna agreed. “Ever since I took my job—” She stopped herself
abruptly. “No, I won’t talk about that. I’m not at work right now, and I made
myself a promise I would try to put this day behind me. Trust me, if you had
any idea what sort of week I’d had, you’d understand.”
    “Oh, I understand all
right,” he concurred. “Trust me. I understand.”
    ***
    Shauna walked up to the front door, nervously anticipating
her last moments alone with Kent.
    “I had a great time,”
she said, coming to a stop just under the porch light.
    He grinned then
shifted his gaze to the ground. “Me, too. Not bad for a first date.”
    “Not bad at all.” She
reached into her purse for a house key. She fumbled for a minute or two,
finally