She reached for her door handle, but he got it before she could. She took a deep breath, but before she could speak, he asked, “Daisy, would you like to go to dinner on Saturday night?”
“Oh. Sorry. I can’t. My brother is coming in town to see my mom. He’s worried about her after her blood pressure spiked.” She started to get in her car but paused and said, “Would you like to come by and see him? I know Diego would love to catch up.”
He nodded. “I’d like to catch up. I’d like that a lot.” He cupped her cheek and gave her a soft kiss that made the pulse rush in her ears. “Get some rest. I’ll be here at eight to help.”
She knew she couldn’t talk them out of helping. And she didn’t want to. Instead, she smiled brilliantly at him and said, “You are wonderful, and I will see you tomorrow.”
Kentossed some cash onto the table for the tip and followed Jon out of the restaurant. They stepped out into the hot August sun, and he immediately felt sweat break out on his forehead. He’d originally thought he might drive to some job sites and inspect them today, but since the heat index currently pushed close to a hundred and fifteen degrees, maybe he’d spend the day in the air conditioning finishing up paperwork instead.
“Good night! Why didn’t we eat at the office?” Jon asked, looking up at the sun.
Ken smirked but, as usual, didn’t reply. He’d suggested the sandwich shop in the lobby of their building, but Jon had wanted barbecue. He slipped his hands into his pockets and considered the rest of his day. He hadn’t seen Daisy this past weekend because her family had come to town, worried about her mother’s recent hospital stay. Instead, he’d spent the weekend working on his new house: getting air conditioning running in the main room, assisting with an electrician buddy on upgrades, and making sure all the installed electrical was up to date on the specifications he’d found filed at the county building offices.
They’d had regular contact, though, texting and calling. But he hadn’t actually seen her face for a solid week and realized that he had just about reached his limit. He might pin her down to pick a night this week for dinner. Tonight, he had the regular weekly family meal, but maybe tomorrow they could do something.
He walked into the lobby of their building and stopped short. A woman sat in a chair in the waiting area. She had blonde hair, a tear-streaked face, and a suitcase at her feet. She bent her head and pressed her fingertips to her eyes as if to contain more tears. As he started toward her, concerned about a crying woman, Jon spoke from behind him. “Alex?”
She whipped her head up and met Ken’s eyes. For a moment, a confused look crossed her face, then looked over his shoulder at his brother. “Jon,” she said, licking her lips and standing. “I’m sorry to drop in. I—” Her breath hitched, and she froze, putting a hand over her chest.
“Hey!” Jon said, stepping around Ken and putting his arms around her. “It’s okay.” He met Ken’s eyes over her head. “Clear an elevator, please.”
Ken dashed across the lobby and caught an elevator door as it slid shut. Putting his boot in the door’s path, he jerked his head toward the lobby. “Out,” he said to the six people in the car. “Please catch the next one.”
No one said a word of challenge to him. With rapt curiosity, they just got out and watched Jon guide Alexandra, with her tear-stained face, into the elevator.
As soon as she got into the elevator, she shored her shoulders and shifted slightly away from Jon. “I’m sorry. I’m a little overwhelmed right now.” She looked up at Ken. “Hi. I’m Alex.”
Even if Jon hadn’t said her name, he’d have guessed as much. Jon had dated someone named Alex while in Nashville. When he and Brad visited him last month, he’d left them one afternoon to go have a lunch date with her. He knew Jon’s trips to New York had something to do with her. “Ken. Youngest son.” He gestured at his brother with his chin. “He’s the oldest.”
A look of understanding crossed her face. “I thought you must be his brother. You two look very much alike.”
Surprised, Ken raised an eyebrow. “Like identical alike?”
Alex looked between them again, first at Ken, then Jon, then back to Ken again. “Well, not really.”
A grin crossed Jon’s face. “I cannot tell you how happy I am that you said that.”
“So,” Ken prodded, “I’m better looking is what you’re saying.”
Jon barked a chuckle. “You’re very pretty, Ken.”
Alex just looked between the two of them with curiosity. The elevator stopped on the tenth floor, and Ken followed them down the corridor with offices on one side and the sea of cubicles on the other. When they reached Jon’s door, Ken kept walking. Suddenly, as if he remembered the social graces at the last minute, he paused and turned. “Very nice to meet you, Alex. Hope to see you again soon.”
After running interference, he headed back to the elevator and went to his floor. He went to his office and shut the door behind him. He wanted to go back to Jon’s office and find out everything he could about Alex’s tears and suitcase. And, more importantly, how he could help her. But, he didn’t. Jon tended to keep to himself about his personal life, and Ken tended to not pry.
Jon had worked on a job in Egypt a couple of years ago. While there, he had gone back to the village where the three of them had helped build a girls’ school during their first solo mission trip before their sophomore year in high school. The day Jon got there, religious extremists had burned down the school with all the children locked inside. Jon had witnessed it, and it had broken him. When he came home from that trip, Ken barely recognized him. He sulked, drank, argued, and completely shut himself off from everyone, including their parents.
After a few months, he asked Brad to send him away from home so he could re-commune with God without the pressure of the family around him. Brad had assigned him to a two-year project building a shopping mall in Nashville.
After meeting Alex in Nashville, he found out she had been in that very same village on the same day. A picture she had taken during the tragedy had earned her a Pulitzer nomination. That news had thrown Jon off-center. The three brothers had spent hours talking about serendipity and God’s ultimate authority and plan and His perfect timing.
Ken had grown closer to his brothers and closer to God himself during that conversation. He hadn’t realized until that time how much of a rut he had fallen into in his relationship with the Almighty. His deep and abiding faith had become mere habit. Everything he said to Jon and Brad that night in the form of counseling his brother to help him come to grips with this memory that caused him so much pain had resonated with his own soul and in his own daily life. It made him pay more attention to Whom he worshiped and why he worshiped Him.
Not even a month later, he had walked into Daisy’s office. As he sat here today contemplating the time with Jon in Nashville and then the timing of Daisy coming back into his life, it occurred to him how God had prepared his heart for Daisy through that time of fellowship in Nashville.
He picked up the phone and called her. She answered on the second ring. “Hi, there.”
“I miss your face.”
