Page 9 of Second Chance Fate (Hope Falls: Brewed Awakenings #5)
When he turned his head, he saw she’d taken a note from the Cameo song; her hand was high in the air, waving like she just didn’t care.
Caleb cursed his single status as the café matriarch approached with a knowing smile.
Out of everyone in town, Sue Ann had the most notches on her matchmaker belt.
For whatever reason, she was hell-bent, excuse the phrase, to see him wifed up.
He wasn’t mad at the sentiment. He appreciated that she wanted the best for him, but it had put him in some very awkward situations spending time with people he had zero—scratch that—less than zero interest in.
“I’ve got someone I want you to meet.” The apples of her cheeks were as rosy as Mrs. Claus’s as she smiled from ear to ear.
“Can you just give me one minute?” He held up his pointer finger and flashed a hopeful grin, but his request was denied.
“No, but you can give me two ,” Sue Ann countered, shaking her head and signaling to a stunning young Brooke Shields look-alike, waving her over.
“I’ve been trying for months to get you two in the same room!” Sue Ann clapped her hands together.
Caleb was typically a very patient, easygoing man. But at this moment, he was neither of those things. Every second that passed was a second she could be getting farther away.
When the green-eyed stunner got within introduction distance, Caleb tried to move things along.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking the woman’s hand impatiently.
“Lyric is my cousin Joan’s granddaughter. So I guess that makes her Ryan’s second cousin once removed,” Sue Ann explained.
Ryan Perkins was Sue Ann’s grandson. He was married to Karina Black, who had started the whole viral “Hot Pastor” thing.
“She’s here visiting from?—”
Caleb pretended his Apple phone buzzed and looked at his watch. “Oh, I actually need to go take this.”
Sue Ann gave him a look clearly communicating she wasn’t born yesterday and that she wasn’t buying his excuse.
Caleb chose to ignore her pointed glare. Instead, he smiled at her cousin’s granddaughter. “Nice to meet you, Lyric.”
“You, too.” A slight blush rose on Lyric’s cheeks as she dipped her chin.
He turned and walked away and thought, in that brief exchange, that unlike a lot of the other women who had been thrust upon him either voluntarily or involuntarily, she was truly shy and sweet.
She wasn’t putting on an act. If he wasn’t on a mission not to let the woman who had been slipping through his fingers like grains of sand through a colander for the past six months get away, he would have actually stopped and spoken to her.
But he didn’t because every second that ticked by, Caleb felt her getting further from his grasp.
When he finally made it through the double doors and entered the lobby, he looked out over the sea of people trying to play Where’s Waldo, except he was playing Where’s Mystery Blonde?
“Pastor Harrison, do you have a moment?”
No!
He made sure to keep his expression neutral as he turned to see who was asking, and he was glad he had.
The question was coming from Claudia Benson.
She’d had a tough year. Her husband left her and her three kids high and dry.
She moved back in with her father, who suffered from alcoholism.
As badly as he wanted to find the mystery woman before she disappeared, his first priority would always be to the people in the community who needed him.
To anyone who needed him, in this community or anywhere.
With his tone and expression softened, he shifted his attention fully toward her. “Caleb, please. And sure, what can I do for you?”
“I wanted you to meet my niece, Kimberly.” She motioned to a woman he’d never seen before beside her.
You’ve got to be kidding me. The last person he ever expected to don a bow and arrow and play Cupid was Claudia Benson.
“Nice to meet you, Kimberly.”
Kimberly flashed him a bold smile. “I follow you on IG.”
Caleb never really knew how to respond to that. “Oh, thanks.”
“I DM’d you, actually,” she relayed with a flirty twinkle in her eye.
“Oh, I don’t actually check my DMs; Judy handles that.” Caleb had stopped checking his DMs after Karina’s post. Judy found them entertaining, so she went through them and passed along any that were important.
“Oh, well, I was hoping maybe we could get some coffee or something this week.” She reached out, and her fingers brushed along his forearm.
“I’d have to check my schedule. You can call the church office. Judy handles all that for me.”
“I'll do that.” Kimberly smiled, her eyes twinkling with interest.
He turned and continued scanning the lobby.
He greeted people as he weaved his way through the crowd, searching for the blue-eyed angel.
He checked by the bathrooms, then doubled back, but even as he made his way through the crowd of faces, he knew he wouldn’t see hers.
Just like the premonition he’d had that she was there a second before he’d seen her, he knew she wasn’t now. She was gone. He’d missed her again.