Free October Joy (Moments In Paradise 1) by Melanie Wilber Page B

himself not to be staring at another man’s wife because I had no idea you were a widow?”
    “How did you find out?” she asked.
    “I asked George.”
    “And how did you feel when you knew?”
    “I felt your pain, Sarah.  And I wanted to ease it so much, but I had no idea how.”
    “Well, you are,” she said, giving him a comfortable smile.  “You’re doing what no one else has been able to do for me.”
    He wanted to kiss her and hold her close to him, but he knew it was too soon for that.  Right, God?
    Right, Andrew.
    Okay, just checking.
    He took her arm and linked it with his and began walking beside her away from the hotel and toward a long stretch of small restaurants and shops.  It wasn’t that late, and everything was still open, and he planned to buy her a cup of coffee at some point and sit and listen as long as she needed that, but for now he walked with her, and he asked her some questions that for most part she answered freely.
    He hadn’t forgotten about asking her earlier if she enjoyed God or not, and he wanted to get back to that eventually, but for now he dove into the more surface issues of her activities and financial situation and relationships back home.  She’d had a happy life with Levi, and he was convinced she could still have one without him, but from experience he knew it was going to take some time to figure out how to do that.
    They walked until they were headed back toward the hotel and decided to step into a café, have some dessert and coffee, and sit at a corner table by the window.  It reminded him of when he and Annika had been in their first year of college and they often stayed late at the diner off campus.  On one of those nights he suggested they should get married the following summer so he wouldn’t have to keep her out to have as much time with her as he wanted.  It hadn’t taken much convincing to get her to say yes when he officially proposed a month later on Christmas Eve.
    “I guess that’s our cue,” he said when one of the employees went to the front door and locked it from the inside and then began putting the chairs on the tables so he could sweep the floor.
    “I guess so,” Sarah said, seeming to just now realize how late it was.  “This was nice, Andrew.  Thank you.”
    They left the table and stepped outside.  Andrew had already decided that once they were back at the hotel he wasn’t going to go in, not even to walk her up to her room.  He was a pastor and a respectable guy who had never cheated on Annika, and he hadn’t looked at another woman with any kind of desire since losing his wife either, but he was a man who was looking at another woman now: a very beautiful and desirable woman.  He had to admit that to himself.  What he had done earlier, he’d done out of necessity and with the highest of noble intentions, but doing the same now would be taking advantage of Sarah, and he knew it.
    “Will you spend the day with me tomorrow, or are you all talked out?” he asked, stopping outside the front door of the hotel and dropping her arm but turning to face her fully.
    “I’d love to spend the day with you,” she said.  “What did you have in mind?”
    “A drive in the country.  A picnic lunch.  Talking about God and how you can go on from here.”
    “That sounds nice.”
    “Dinner back here with you, and then maybe we’ll actually make it to a meeting tomorrow.”
    “I’m sorry you had to miss tonight on account of me.”
    “I’m not.  This is why I’m here, Sarah.  For you.”
    She hadn’t cried since leaving the hotel, except for an occasional teary-eyed moment when she talked about something especially personal, and she got that way again, allowing a few tears to spill onto her cheeks.  He reached up and brushed them away with his thumb and held her cheek gently in his palm.
    “I like spending time with you, Sarah.  And not just as a pastor counseling a grieving woman.  But as a man.”
    She looked at him