Page 20 of No Time for Promises

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Flashing back to the present,Zander looked around the bar, seeing a whole lot of Sheilas parading around, trying to catch every man’s eye.

He wasn’t the same, naïve seventeen-year-old he’d been when she strolled in. He had learned so much about life and a little about love. Most of all, he’d learned that people changed. People lied. People, especially those you loved, couldn’t always be trusted.

He didn’t blame his seventeen-year-old self or even his twenty-year-old self. At the time, he’d simply been blinded by the feelings raging in his heart, by the connection he had, and by the vision of a future he thought he wanted.

Sheila put his life on a fast track U-turn to a completely different future than he saw for himself. She changed him slowly, cautiously, without him realizing what was happening. Because of that day, he would do what he promised he never would—he would let love dictate where his life went. More than that, he was completely okay with that, his infatuation with the girl who loved hot sauce on everything and wore mismatched socks telling him that love was more important than anything. The feeling he had when he was with her became addictive, something he needed more than he needed his acting or his love for theater.

If only he had known how she would wreck his dreams and threaten to take away his passion, he would’ve run far away that summer day when he was seventeen. Or he would have let her walk right back out the door, off to registration and whatever the year would hold for her. He would have shut down his heart to the girl with the perfect smile, knowing the woman she would become would wreak havoc on the life he had planned and shatter his heart in the process.

But he didn’t know. He couldn’t have known.

He did now, though. He knew how love turned out. He couldn’t change the past, but he could be more careful in the future. Even though his heart was healing, slowly getting closer to a maybe with love, he knew because of Sheila there would always be hesitation. He knew a yes to love wouldn’t be easy. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe being more careful was what he needed now.

And maybe it would take just the right person to turn the maybe into a yes.

Zander’s thoughts were a whirling mess of memories, regrets, and fears, but in the midst of all of that, one truth bubbled to the surface.

Rachel Winters. The girl from Broadway. There was something about her that magnetized him, just like that day. It was a scary thought, but somehow, he also wasn’t afraid of her. Somehow, he sensed she wasn’t Sheila Carlisle, not even close. And somehow, he sensed his heart would be safer with her—not safe completely, but safer. And that was a pretty big insight, especially considering he was only one beer in and not at all drunk.

As he was getting ready to order another drink, his phone buzzed. If he were a man who believed in fate and signs, he would call it just that. But Zander Riley didn’t believe in much he couldn’t see with his own eyes or prove with rational thought. He was a cautious man these days, so he simply brushed the thoughts aside and answered the phone.

And even though he might not openly admit it, he did acknowledge to himself that when he saw the name Rachel on his screen, he felt his heart crack just a little bit more.

He wondered if this would be another one of those moments when, years later when he looked back, he would wish he hadn’t hit Answer.

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