A Side of Faith, Hope and Love: The Sandwich Romance Novella Collection Read online

  Allie shook her head, her eyes still wide with confusion. “Wait. He’s—moving in with you? But I thought—”

  Tilly curled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “His decision, not my choice. He, uh, kinda co-owns the house I live in. It’s a long story and a temporary situation until I figure out what to do. Obviously we can’t live together the rest of our lives.”

  “Well…”

  Tilly looked at Maddie and frowned at the mischievous glint in her eye. “Well what?”

  “I mean, you loved him once upon a time, right? And you have to admit. He’s easy on the eyes. And a doctor. Who loves babies. Can’t get much sexier than that. What if—”

  “No!” The word blurted out of her mouth louder than she intended. She swallowed and took a breath, calming her tone even though her heart beat an erratic thump. “I mean, no. That was a long time ago. We’re different people now. Plus, he left me.”

  Allie peeled a pepperoni from her pizza, gooey cheese stretching with it until it finally snapped. She looked at the round piece of meat and then at the cheese and smiled. "You know, it's kinda like this pizza here."

  Tilly shook her head. "What is like your pizza?"

  "Well, the pepperoni left, breaking what was this great combination of cheese and pepperoni. But the cheese didn't want it to leave, so it clung to it until it couldn't hold on anymore. Apart, they are just boring cheese pizza and greasy pepperoni. But together, they are pepperoni pizza, and taste delicious. The best selling pizza in the nation, even."

  Even Maddie looked perplexed. "Do you have a point, or do you and your pizza need some alone time?"

  Allie popped the pepperoni into her mouth and devoured it. "The pepperoni left and ruined a good thing, but the cheese was stretching to keep them together for as long as possible." She glanced at Tilly and smiled. "Adam left you, and that was awful. But you telling him to leave was equally as wrong. From what you said, you didn't even give a fight, which tells me you weren't melted enough together in the first place. But you’re different people now. You said so yourself. What if he’s changed? What if now that you’re older, you’re perfect for each other? Sometimes you have to cut off another slice and have another go of it. Maybe this time you can get good and melted together.”

  Tilly buried her face in her knees and closed her eyes as an invisible finger pressed against her chest. How could they be saying this?

  Hook back up with her ex-ish husband? Absolutely not. They weren’t in love. She wasn’t even attracted to him anymore.

  The thumb in her chest pressed harder, pointing out her lie.

  Fine. She’d admit that Adam was still as handsome as ever, maybe even more so with age. There was something about him that drew her in, made her heart go all samba on her when she saw him. His stride was confident when he walked. His voice still had that husky growl that had only gotten sexier with age. And his eyes still had the ability to look right through her and read her as easy as a picture book.

  But looks didn’t mean everything. And good looks did not a quality marriage make.

  There needed to be something more. And she had no desire to find out what that something more was.

  The couch dipped next to her as Allie sat and draped her arm around Tilly's back. “We’re not pushing you, Tilly. But—you’re married. All I’m saying is that at some point, you need to go to God and ask him what you should do. I know a lot of people would tell you to listen to your heart and do what it’s telling you, but I’m going to do the opposite. Our hearts are fickle things. They get broken, they get angry, and sometimes they get selfish and prideful. They have past hurts they need to let go of sometimes, and they can honestly be temperamental. So let’s set aside your heart and set aside Adam’s heart. Look at God’s heart and pray that he gives you wisdom.”

  A hot tear escaped Tilly’s eye, and she quickly brushed it away. She’d always—secretly—prided herself on her marriage. Tilly, woman of virtue, refusing to divorce her good-for-nothing absent husband.

  She’d spent the last eighteen years digging herself deeper into the same old rut, and now God was throwing her a rope, telling her to grab on.

  And darn it all. She didn’t want to. Why fix what wasn't broken, right?

  But on the other hand, she couldn’t kid herself anymore.

  If she didn’t grab hold, she’d be forced to look into the mirror and see herself for who she really was.

  A forty-year-old woman who had used God as an excuse to pout and feel holier-than-thou for eighteen very, long years, when in reality, she was just as much to blame.

  Six

  Adam blinked sleep from his eyes as an incessant shrill attacked his ears. Groaning, he reached over to the side table and tapped Snooze on his phone, then fell back on the couch.

  His back moaned at the small movement.

  He’d crashed for two nights now on a piece of furniture about ten years past its acceptable-to-be-slept-on date. The delivery of his own king-sized bed couldn’t come soon enough.

  But it was only Monday, and the movers weren't set to arrive with the truck until later in the week. Confirming the arrival date was the second thing on his to-do list as soon as he got a break at the office. Securing a good storage unit to store what couldn’t come here was third.

  But all that would have to wait until after coffee.

  He flung his legs to the floor and stood, stretching his arms toward the ceiling and allowing his limbs to do a synchronized crack.

  A whiff of coffee lured him into the kitchen where Tilly stood at the counter, already dressed for work, slathering grape jelly onto a piece of toast.

  Memories of her in that cubs T-shirt plagued him daily. Her legs were still as long and gorgeous as they had been in her twenties.

  She looked up at him and cocked an eyebrow. “Morning, Sunshine.”

  He grunted in response and shuffled over the cold linoleum to the coffeepot. Grabbing a mug from the cupboard, he filled it to the brim and sipped it black, the searing hot liquid jolting his senses awake.

  Ah. The fog in his brain started to slowly dissolve. “Good morning.”

  “You always were a grouch before your coffee.”

  “Some things never change, Till.”

  Her brow furrowed, but not in anger. Contemplative, almost. Maybe she was softening. The thought gave him a glimpse of hope.

  She put the lid back on the jelly and returned it to the fridge. “You’re right. Some things don’t change. It’s kinda nice, isn’t it?”

  He could see right through her guarded, careful eyes. Even after eighteen years, she was still grabbing hold to the familiar with all her might. “Change can be a good thing though.”

  She shrugged as she munched on her toast.

  Good sense told him to leave it alone. But if they were ever going to make this thing work, they were going to have to talk about it sometime. Might as well start little by planting the seed. “You got promoted at work, right? Not many waitresses end up managing the whole restaurant.”

  “That’s different. It was moving up, not changing altogether.”

  He shook his head and took another sip of his morning vice. “Moving up is changing, and you know it. And you moved here, didn’t you?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I moved back to my childhood home. Mom was going to sell it, but I begged her not to, so she gifted it to me instead. Her new husband was rolling in dough anyway, so she didn’t need the money.”

  Ah. He was wondering how that’d happened. Not many people just gave someone a house before they died, even to their own daughter. “It was still a change.”

  She stuffed the last bite of toast into her mouth and dumped the plate in the sink. “I have to go. A new waitress starts this morning, and I need to do her orientation. You’re starting your job today, right?”

  It wasn’t even seven in the morning. No way was she meeting a new employee this early at a restaurant that only served lunch and dinner. But he let the
lie pass this time. “Yup. Doing a few meet-and-greets throughout the week with patients who'll be moving over to me, and filling out an obscene amount of paperwork for insurance companies.”

  “No delivering babies yet?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Not yet. But hopefully soon. Helping those sweet babies into the world is my favorite part.”

  And it was. Some thought it weird that a guy would be all sentimental about the idea of birth. He’d even gotten a few perverted jokes about the matter.

  But welcoming a child into this world was miraculous. He’d known it was his calling since the moment he’d observed his first live birth as a med student. Then he’d assisted on a birth that hadn’t turned out so well. The baby had been born healthy enough, but moments later, she turned blue and had to be resuscitated.

  He found out later that the baby had a heart defect, one that could have been found in utero but was missed. The baby survived, and Adam had the urge to follow an even more obscure specialty: maternal fetal medicine.

  It’d been a long road.

  More schooling, followed by residency and fellowship programs.

  But he loved every moment of his job.

  Tilly opened her mouth to reply, but then her eyes turned from curious to guarded in a blink. She pushed away from the counter and cleared her throat “Well, I’d better be off. Good luck.”

  He ached to know what she was going to say, but asking her wouldn't do any good, would only push her farther away. Patience, Adam. It's what Pastor Dave would tell him right now. “Have a good day.”

  She walked out the door to the back porch, slipped on her black flats, and left without another word.

  Adam watched her go, a bud of hope taking root in his heart. He took another long drink from his cup, the hot liquid now warm enough to gulp instead of sip.

  She’s thawing.

  He wasn't sure how he knew. Maybe it was the fact that she’d glared a little less, or that she’d said goodbye instead of ignoring him.

  Or—no. It was her eyes. Something in their silvery depths had softened when they met his gaze.

  Not lovey dovey or anything. But not utter hatred either.

  The real test would be at the end of the week when they had a heart-to-heart about furniture. He didn’t want to press the issue but—he did. If they were ever going to get beyond the past and move into the future, Tilly was going to have to accept both his apology and his presence.

  And to do both, it meant she had to accept change.

  He knew why it was hard. He’d traveled the road with her during high school after her parents divorced. She’d spent summers and holidays with her father, a different city every time. The man was like a nomad who was never happy with life. He’d achieve something, then get bored and go on to the next place. His appetite for more was never satisfied.

  He lived high on life, spending money and lavishing Tilly with gifts, even though all she wanted, all she craved, was for her family to be whole again.

  She’d cried in Adam’s arms upon her return each summer, spilling her heart out.

  He hadn’t understood it fully then, but now, hindsight and a medical degree later, he could see what she’d done. To compensate for the turmoil, she’d clung to everything that was stable.

  It was why she’d never served him with divorce papers all these years.

  He didn’t have the same excuse though.

  His reason was much less complicated and maybe even more insane.

  He was still in love with his wife.

  It’d just taken almost losing his life to make him realize it.

  Seven

  Tilly wished she had a few vegetables handy because she could probably cook them to perfection with the steam that was surely coming from her ears.

  It was Saturday and instead of sleeping in, she stood on her front lawn, the temperature barely twenty degrees, wearing slippers and a bathrobe, with two moving guys slouched before her and the largest moving truck she’d ever seen parked in front of her house.

  And her husband was nowhere to be found.

  She clenched a fist. For his health, that was probably a good thing right now.

  He’d told her last night he was going out to breakfast with an old friend, but now he wasn’t answering his phone and definitely hadn’t said a thing about movers arriving while he was gone.

  “So, ma’am, you want us to start hauling everything in?”

  Over her cold, dead body. “What I’d love is for you to turn around and take it all back to California.”

  The taller of the men, Rob according to his name tag, scratched his head. “That, uh, would be pretty costly. And what would we do with it there?”

  She made a shooing motion with her hand and hugged her robe tighter, trying to cling to the shred of warmth it offered. “Keep it, for all I care.”

  The shorter man, Skip, had a grin longer than the state he originated from. “There’s a lot of nice stuff in there. I’d be up for that trade.”

  Great. Probably all modern and weird. No way was her old, comfortable house being overrun by yuppy furniture.

  Maybe a little trade wasn’t a bad idea—

  But before she could reply, Adam pulled into the drive and hopped out of his equally yuppy Lexus SUV, wearing jeans and a warm, black button-up coat. “Hey, guys! Sorry I’m late.” He jogged over to where they stood and put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

  She looked at his hand as it rested on her arm and then back at him. What in the world had come over him? “Adam, you’d better—”

  His hard squeeze and wink shut her up, then he dropped his arm and shook Rob’s hand. “I’ll get you the address to the storage garage I rented, but we need to get the bed off and a few other things first. You got my message, right?”

  Rob nodded. “Sure did. Bed and the other stuff you mentioned is packed in the back, easy to get out.” He turned and walked to the truck. Unlocking the deadbolt, he hefted the back door up into the trailer.

  Tilly swallowed against her dry throat and cautioned a step toward the truck.

  In the back was the biggest bed she’d ever seen. What did he do, sleep with an elephant beside him? “Adam, are you telling me that’s the bed you’re planning on putting upstairs?”

  “Sure is.”

  She shook her head at the man’s stupidity. “It’ll never work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Uh, the stairs? You’ll never get it past the bend." The stairs were separated by a 180-degree turn, with a very small landing in the middle, surrounded by floor to ceiling walls. It’d taken an act of God and more than a few dings in the drywall to get her queen mattress and box spring up there. No way would this monstrosity fit.

  His dark gray eyes shot her a look of annoyance. “Oh ye of little faith. Just watch and see, woman.”

  Had he just called her—woman?

  But no matter. He’d find out soon enough who was the idiot in this conversation. She took a step back, clung tightly to keep her robe closed, and waved her hand as if presenting the house to him formally. “Go right ahead, sir. I’m anxiously waiting to see your stroke of brilliance.”

  He rolled his eyes and gave instructions to the movers.

  Ten minutes later, a massive box spring sat in her dining room, along with two sweaty movers and a red-faced doctor. Tilly, having thrown on jeans and a sweater, leaned against the kitchen doorway. Coffee in one hand, she tapped her chin with the other. “So, didn’t work?”

  Adam shot her a look. “What about the balcony? If we tied string around the bed and—”

  “Absolutely not.” She could see it now, the bed dangling from the upstairs balcony on the front of her house. No way, José.

  Rob shook his head. “Sorry man, but I agree with your other half on this.”

  Tilly lifted her chin and eyebrows and looked at Adam, hoping he got the I-told-you-so message without her having to say it out loud.

  His frown said he had. “Tilly, can we chat
for a moment?”

  She shrugged, her eyes wide, feigning innocence. “We’re talking now, right?”

  “In private, honey bun.”

  Honey—what? Oh how she wanted to throttle him right about now.

  Before she could think of a snappy reply, he strode over to her, placed a hand on her arm, and escorted her to the back porch. “I’m not sleeping on the couch another night.”

  “I hear the hotel is back open.” A woman could dream.

  His voice was low and serious. “Not funny. Seriously. We either find a way to use my bed, or you have a roommate upstairs.”

  She felt every bit of blood drain from her face.

  Adam? In her—their bed? Old desires long buried fanned the fire that burned her cheeks.

  In that moment, the anger dissipated and was replaced by a heady awareness of her husband. Adam stood only an inch away, his breath tickling her cheek. His hand still held onto her arm, sending shivers up her skin at the warm pressure. She looked up to see the heat in his eyes. He knew exactly the effect he had on her.

  No. This couldn't happen. She could not, would not, fall for her husband again. The pain had almost destroyed her the first time.

  She took a step back, and he dropped his hand and let her go. “I, uh, you could—” She swallowed, her mind scrambling for possible solutions that didn’t involve sleeping with her husband. The only thing she could think of meant another change, but it was better than the alternative. “The master bedroom. You can put the bed there.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “You mean your parents’ old bedroom?”

  She nodded, a mallet pounding her temples at the thought of opening that room again. When her parents had split, Mom had moved upstairs and made the lower-level level room into an office and sewing area. No one had slept in the master bedroom for over twenty-five years.

  Tilly gulped at the thought of it, of the painful memories it brought back. “Yes. I can move my office and sewing machine to the spare bedroom upstairs.”

  “No.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “The room doesn’t even have a door, Tilly.”