The Sometime Bride

opportunity to come here.
    Gwen passed through the enormous wooden door, her senses immediately engulfed by burning incense. Though she wasn’t Catholic, she didn’t believe God would mind if she took a spot on a pew for a few moments to mull through her life. What an event it had been. There’d been so much to it she’d never seen coming. When she met Robert in college, he’d appeared so promising. He was ambitious and fun and seemed poised to carve out a good life for himself and any lady lucky enough to join him. When he’d asked Gwen to marry him just before graduation, she’d been over the moon. He had a good job offer in Wilmington, and they could settle in the nearby town where Gwen had grown up and her family still lived. It had all seemed so idyllic at first.
    Gwen glanced down at the completely ineffectual wedding ring as her hand rested in her lap. It hadn’t taken long for Robert to find someone he thought more intelligent and interesting than her. She bored him to tears with her tales of kids in school and had no real talents as far as he could gather. The people he worked with were insightful, intuitive, interesting… Maybe if Gwen looked more at the papers or followed the news, she’d be interesting too, though he kind of doubted it.
    Gwen heaved a sigh, knowing she couldn’t continue to beat herself up over Robert’s shortcomings. When she was thinking clearly, as Marian often encouraged her to do, she understood that her marriage falling apart had more to do with him than her. Or perhaps it was due to them both and the fact that, once they’d escaped from the cocoonlike sanctuary of the university, neither of them truly fit together. Gwen wondered sadly if she was destined to fit together with any man. Perhaps that wasn’t in the cards for her, and maybe that was okay. If her art took off and she built herself a career, something that she adored and was really proud of, that might be enough.
    She considered her meeting this evening with Dan, realizing she’d been acting like a silly schoolgirl. It wasn’t his fault she hadn’t dated since her divorce, so why should she hold him accountable for her surging hormones? Any nice-looking man who’d paid her attention would likely have made her feel the same. As an elementary schoolteacher, she simply hadn’t had much opportunity for that. All the men she met were either married or formerly married and quickly reattached. It seemed the decent ones didn’t last long on the market. From what she’d gathered from her quick perusals of Internet dating sites, the perpetual bachelors all seemed to have something wrong with them. Then again, Dan appeared normal. Exceedingly normal, healthy, and sexually enticing as well. So why hadn’t a tamale-hot catch like him been snapped up already?
    Gwen decided to head back to the inn to cool off for a few hours before her gallery appointment. This praying business didn’t seem to be going too well. She thought she’d probably done it wrong. It had been such a while, she couldn’t tell. In any case, she was grateful to Dan for granting her this chance. At the heart of it, Gwen understood that was all this really was, a chance to sell some of her art to a very fine place and hopefully help turn her sister’s life around. That was worth a few amens, no doubt. She dipped her head, offering them quickly, and bowed out of the cathedral before anyone could stop her and ask her for money. That was one part of going to church she hadn’t forgotten. There was a lady near the door collecting donations for the restoration fund. Gwen slipped silently past her and out into the sunshine before the woman could hold up a brochure. Maybe once Gwen was rich and famous she’d feel a bit more philanthropic. At the moment, she scarcely had cash for dinner. She’d have to hurry to catch the wine-and-cheese hour before the other guests cleaned out the Havarti.

    Dan paced the redwood-pine floors, double-checking the time on his BlackBerry. The afternoon couldn’t have dragged out more if he’d planned it. It all seemed to go in slow motion, as if he were deep-sea diving, arms and legs battling against ocean pressure.
    The occasional browsers stopped by, and there was the shipment to get out to Los Angeles, but Nancy’s assistant Megan had come in to see to that. She wore a nose piercing and a puckish haircut that added to her image of a small sprite sprinting around the gallery. Dan had never seen a