Love Starts with Elle(21)

Hearing Heath pull away, she started for the studio steps, her emotions beginning to boil. She burst inside, threw the box to the table, and yanked her cell phone from the top of her bag.

Jeremiah Franklin better answer this call.





SEVEN

On the loft floor of what used to be GG Gallery, Elle sat with her knees to her chest, her arms wrapped around her calves. The men working on Angela Dooley’s remodel had stood aside when Elle barged in like a wounded animal and bounded up to the second level.

“Don’t mind me,” she’d told them, her voice hollow to her own ears.

“Hey, you can’t come in here. This is a construction site.”

“Leave her alone, Frank. Elle, you okay?”

“Fine, Gilly. Just peachy.” Why she wanted to be at the gallery— or what used to be her gallery—Elle didn’t know, but she climbed to the loft and huddled on the floor, the darkness comforting her.

Jeremiah didn’t answer her initial call, nor the two dozen after. God, what is going on? Hopelessness locked on and Elle let her tears slip free. “What did I ever do to him?”

Wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand, feeling the grit of the construction mess grinding her skin, she’d dialed Jeremiah again and was rewarded for the twentieth time with his stupid, tired, recorded message. “You’ve reached Jeremiah Franklin, senior pastor at 3:16 Metro Church. I’m not available . . .”

Elle pressed End, her jaw tight. “You’re never available.”

Waiting for him to call in between all of her autodialing, Elle tried to fathom her relationship with Jeremiah coming to this. The enticing, electric sensations he’d created in her belly when he kissed her and slipped his fingers along the edge of temptation were distant and cold.

Drawing in a big gulp of warm, dusty loft air, Elle tried to make sense of it all. Was it Dallas and the big church? Was it her? Him? Did they not know each other as well as they pretended?

Why won’t you call me back? She resisted the urge to smash her phone against the wall.

The last glow of daylight had slipped away from the store’s pane window, leaving Elle completely in the dark when her phone finally rang.

“I’m in a meeting and my phone won’t stop vibrating,” he said without hello, without saying her name.

A string of blue words, many of which Elle had never uttered before in her life, flowed from her soul. “Then get out of the meeting.”

“I told you I’d call later.”

“The box came.” Flat, honest confession.

Silence, followed by a heavy blast of air. “It wasn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow or later.”

“Darn the efficiency of those FedEx boys.” Her wounds dripped sarcasm.

Silence again. “It’s not going to work, Elle.”

Her tense muscles kept her from shattering into a million pieces. “What is not going to work, Jeremiah?” She’d given him way too much lead in their relationship. If he wanted to say something, he’d best speak plainly.

“You. Me. Marriage.” She heard a door click closed and the echo of Jeremiah’s footsteps in a hollow hall.

“Only because you’re sabotaging it. You’re physically and emotionally unavailable. I can’t win.”

“I can’t win with you either. I told you, Elle, the ministry would consume me at first.”

“When have I ever interrupted your ministry?” Now that it was going down, she couldn’t stop shaking.

“Face it, Elle. You don’t want to be married to a pastor.”

“Jeremiah, I love you. I want to be married to you, not your job. I feel like you want me to simply fit into your life without bringing any part of myself. It’s like I’m the right size, so give me the suit.”

“I don’t know how you can say that, but yes, I need a woman who can stand strong in ministry. Elle, if you want to do your own thing, chase your own God dreams, then go for it, but I can’t let it get in the way of what He’s called me to do.” His confession sliced through her heart, painfully cutting. “I’m sorry. Those are hard words, but I felt you needed to hear them.”

“You are so unfair and selfish, Jeremiah. How could you say that to me? I’ve never let my dreams get in the way of yours. I agreed to the house, agreed to move to Dallas after you proposed, agreed to wait on the gallery.”

“Look, let’s not cloud the issue.”

“Cloud the issue? I think it’s fairly clear, Jer—you don’t want to marry me.”

“Elle, I’m just not ready.”

“You’re thirty-five. When will you be ready?” His lame excuse angered her.

“It’s not age, it’s the work. I’m not in a place to take on marriage. I’m sorry. If I’d have known this when I took the job, I would’ve never proposed.”

“Then quit.” A sharp but logical resolution.

“Quit? The church?”

“Yes, the church. Quit for us.”

“I can’t quit the church, Elle,” Jeremiah said. “I’ve made a commitment to these people. They’ve invested time and money in me and my vision.”

“You made a commitment to me. Are you going stand before God and hear, ‘Kudos, son, for dumping the artist gal to pastor a church’? God, family, job, remember? You’re not their savior, bubba. Last I looked Jesus earned that job.”