Chapter One
Ten Years Later
Fresh from the gym, sweaty, with no makeup on and her hair tied into a messy ponytail, Eve walked down the aisles of the grocery store, listening to her mother rant on the cell phone about a recent scandal in the church. It seems the youth pastor had left his wife of thirteen years for a twenty-year-old girl who, until her true colors were revealed, was one of those girls Eve’s mother would look at with glowing eyes and wish until her dying breath her only daughter would be more like.
Eve’s life had sunk to such levels that she was enjoying the scandal and listened with a curious ear rather than blow her mother off. Eve paused in the aisle, her mother’s voice droning on, and realized this was the most interesting thing that had happened to her all day—some twenty-year-old getting it from a youth pastor.
She was getting a buzz off someone else’s sex life instead of her own.
“Does the girl not care that the man has children?” her mother asked, her shrill voice pulling Eve back to reality.
“Why are you blaming her?” Eve shook her head to clear her morose thoughts and picked up a box of bran flakes, staring at the label more as a distraction than anything.
“He’s thirty-something and Sara’s just a girl. Why not blame him?”
“You know men can’t control themselves,” her mother said dismissively. “And twenty is old enough to know better. Her poor mother, she’ll never be able to show her face at church again.”
“Mom, I gotta go,” Eve mumbled, putting the bran flakes back because she found herself appreciating the high fiber content. She was getting boring and old. That was not supposed to happen. “What was I getting you again?”
“Vanilla ice cream. I’m making apple pie for the ladies group. You should come.
I’m hosting this week.”
“Not likely,” Eve said, her eyes widening at the thought. “Your churchwomen’s meetings are what my specialized version of hell is going to consist of.”
“I wouldn’t joke about that.”
“Vanilla ice cream, got it,” she said, ignoring the rest and hanging up before her mother went off on a rant about Eve’s sinful ways.
“Evie Girl?”
Eve gasped in surprise, her heart jolting from the nostalgia caused by a nickname she hadn’t heard in a very long time. The smooth male voice was too close for comfort and she moved away instinctively before she spun around. Her jaw fell slack as she stared up at the tall, dark and handsome man standing in front of her.
11
Beyond Eden
This was not happening. She was not running into Danny Carlow, one of the sexiest males to walk on two legs, when she was an utter mess from the gym and her life was in shambles. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he also happened to have been Paul Mattling’s best friend since kindergarten. She hadn’t seen her ex-boyfriend since she was eighteen and this was not how she wanted to be reported about to Paul ten years later.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Danny said, a grin tugging at his full lips as his eyes ran over her. “I’ve been following you from the produce section. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought you were in New York.”
“I was.” Eve absentmindedly tried to smooth the wisps of hair escaping her ponytail. How very typical that she should meet Danny when she looked her worst and he was still devastatingly handsome, perhaps more so than she remembered because age suited him. Even in a black t-shirt and jeans, he wore an air of self-confidence in his own attractiveness that left Eve feeling plain. “Things didn’t, um—work out like I planned. I’m back home for the time being.”
Danny ran a hand through his dark hair that was shorter than she remembered. His eyes ran over her appraisingly and Eve wished they wouldn’t because he had her feeling awkward and sixteen again. He was tall and lithe, all hard, cut muscles and tan skin. His mother was Cuban and he inherited all the best her people had to offer. His heritage showed in his full lips, his nicely arched eyebrows and in the smoldering fire of his dark, bedroom eyes.
Life changed nothing. Eve still felt inadequate next to him. She had been a goddess in New York, finally confident in the beauty God had given her, but facing Danny had her feeling like the thin, geeky girl she had convinced herself she was throughout her adolescence. She hated that she was shamefully flattered he had followed her, even though they had once been the best of friends. His handsomeness and raw sexuality left her feeling like she was lucky just to be around him.
“That’s a shame,” he said, his voice rolling like silk off his tongue. “Because it looks like New York suited you. You look fantastic.”