Lost & Found Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

anything she’d seen so far. It brought out fascinating dimples in his lean cheeks. Tabby realized she was staring and spun away with a blush. She would like to paint him. Not only was he beautiful, but for the first time that she could remember, he inspired images in her mind that were warm and bright. She felt like a moth to his flame. She had to get him out of the confines of the kitchen. “We could take it out on the porch in the shade.”
    And so, a few minutes later, Tabby found herself curled up on a porch swing, sipping tea while the minister of the Baptist church sat nearby. But it was hard to think of him that way when he didn’t fit any of her previously conceived notions about what ministers should look like.
    “I appreciate your help,” Tabby said.
    Joe smiled. “But you’d like me to go home now?”
    Tabby flushed and her gaze skittered away. “I didn’t say that.”
    He leaned back in his chair and set his glass on the table next to it, idly watching as a bead of sweat ran down the outside of the glass. “You didn’t have to. Some people are very effective at getting a point across without saying anything at all. It’s there in your voice and your body language. Do you think I haven’t encountered reactions like yours before?”
    She didn’t want to be lumped in with other people. More than that, she didn’t want him to see how much he scared her. Tabby stuck her chin out. “Why would I have any reaction? I hardly know you.”
    He smiled, but beneath it, she glimpsed weariness and disillusionment. “Yet you do. Have a reaction, that is. Is it me personally or the fact that I’m a minister?”
    Tabby set her glass aside. She met his steady gaze squarely, though inside her stomach fluttered with nerves. “You’re very direct.”
    “Sometimes you have to be, and while I’m being direct, I’ll tell you that I’m attracted to you, Tabby, and I don’t think that attraction’s all one-sided.”
    Tabby shook her head, trying to convince herself with the same words she said to him. “No. But not in the way you mean. I’m an artist. I’d like to paint you. You—you have an air about you I would like to capture on canvas.”
    “It’s my halo.”
    Tabby gaped a moment, then burst out laughing. “I can’t believe you said that. Won’t you get struck by lightning or something?”
    “No more so than you for saying your only interest was in painting me.” He lifted one brow and grinned.
    She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times then said, “I don’t date ministers. I don’t do the whole church thing.”
    Joe gazed at her with his impossibly patient blue eyes. He tilted his head a little, and one dimple appeared when he lifted the corner of his mouth. “I’m not asking you to marry me, nor am I even asking you to ‘do the whole church thing’—though I wouldn’t kick you out if you showed up. Could we try neighbors, maybe even friends first?” When Tabby hesitated, he arched one thick golden brow. “I’ll let you paint me.”
    “Really?” Her eyes lit up. “Are you bribing me, Pastor?”
    His smile expanded. “Whatever works, and call me Joe or Joseph. You’ll have to add the bribery to my list of sins.”
    Tabby stood up. “Now?”
    “You want to get started right now?”
    “Yes. I’d like to get my sketchpad. It’s upstairs in my studio.”
    Tabby didn’t realize he’d followed until she turned from picking up the heavy sketchbook and the zippered bag that held her pencils. Joe’s eyes were riveted on the painting still sitting on the easel, a violent flaring of dark colors intermixed with flashes of vivid fiery lights and glimpses of tortured souls. Tabby pivoted and covered the painting with an oilcloth. When she faced him again, her chin jutted and her shoulders were stiff.
    Without looking at her, he said quietly, “It’s what you were painting the night I heard you….”
    If anything, her body stiffened even more. “Heard me what?”
    He looked at