Though that might have been a legitimate question, Belle shook her head and laughed. “No. Someone like your mom.”
“Oh.” His expression relaxed as he shifted on his seat. “I suppose so. I mean, she’s loving and caring. We never doubted that she loved us, even though four of us didn’t share blood with her. She always made time for Dad and for us. So yeah, you could do worse than having a spouse that was like that.”
“You wouldn’t want a wife home all the time like her?” Belle wasn’t sure why she was asking him questions like that, but she chalked it up to her curiosity about a family so different from her own.
Mitch looked down at his water glass, lifting it to take a sip before he answered. “I guess that would depend on what she wants. What sort of job she has. It would be something we’d have to decide together. But it’s not like I’ve made a list that has she must not work somewhere on it.”
He chuckled as he said it, and Belle joined him even though she wasn’t really feeling the humor in it. Once upon a time, the list she’d had of what she wanted in a husband had included things like that. Must make good money. Must have a good job. Even then, she felt that relying on something like love wasn’t going to cut it. That was probably how Andre had been able to get his hooks into her so easily. He’d ticked quite a few of those boxes for her.
“So you’re not concerned about her job or career? What she does?”
“Not really.” Mitch sat forward, resting his arms on the table, an earnest expression on his face. “When I was a teenager, a man spoke to us about how we could determine the character of a person we were thinking about dating. He used the Bible passage from first Corinthians thirteen. Are you familiar with it?”
Belle nodded. “I’ve heard it at church, for sure, and I hear it a lot at wedding ceremonies, especially the ones taking place in a church.”
“Yeah. Anyway, he told us we should substitute the name of the person we were dating for the word love. You know, like, instead of love is patient, we should say, for example, Susie is patient. Susie is kind. Susie does not envy…and so on.”
“Wow, that’s a pretty high standard to hold someone to,” Belle said, wondering how many of those statements would be true of her.
“Yeah, it is, and at first I thought it would be like holding someone to a standard they could never achieve.”
“At first?”
“I got to thinking about it later, realizing that any girl who was given that same advice might put my name in place of love. That’s when I realized two things. First, it is important to look for those attributes in a person. Obviously no one is perfect, and a person may have times when they are envious or impatient, but at least they should be striving for those things.”
“And second?”
“Second is that I needed to be striving for those things myself. I wanted any girl who might decide to apply that standard to me to see that I was trying to live that kind of a life.”
Belle had never thought about something like that before. She hadn’t attended youth groups in her teens, and in the time since she had started to attend church a few years back, she’d never heard a sermon presenting 1 Corinthians 13 quite like that. Oh, there had been plenty of sermons on the attributes a Christian should strive for. The fruits of the spirit and such.
“Anyway, those are the things I tend to focus on more than the job she has or if she’s going to keep working. Those are good conversations to have, of course, but they shouldn’t overshadow other important things.” Mitch sat back as the waitress put their food down in front of them. “Actually, I’ve found that applying that standard to friends can be good too. I mean, they’re good qualities to have in the people you surround yourself with.”
“That’s very true,” Belle agreed, wondering at the depth she was finding in Mitch. Not that she’d thought he was a shallow man, but she was finding depths in him that she hadn’t anticipated.
As they ate their dinner, Belle found the conversation didn’t flow quite as easily as the last time they were together. That was mainly on her part though, because now she found herself thinking about what Mitch had said and wondered how she’d stack up. She might have to pull out her Bible when she got home and read over the passage again with Mitch’s words in mind.
“So, are you really ready for painting?” Belle asked as the waitress cleared their dishes away.
“Not quite, but I’d like to get the paint lined up so that when we’re ready, we have everything we need.” He pulled the binder over and opened it up. “I know you said before you wanted pastels. Is that still the case?”
Belle nodded. “I’d like to keep the colors as close as possible to what we have now.”
“Okay, so let’s start with the foyer, and we’ll work our way through each area.”
Belle stared at the colors of the swatches in the binder. “Will I have to make a decision on every color tonight? Because…wow…how many different shades of one color are there?”
Mitch chuckled. “You’d be surprised. And no, you don’t have to make a decision tonight. Let’s just get a general idea of the different colors that you’d like in each area, then you can take the binder and spend time going through it.”
“Maybe we should just do every shade of lavender,” Belle said as she flipped to that color section of the binder.
Mitch laughed. “You must really love the color.”
“I do like it,” Belle admitted. “Not sure why.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure there are enough shades for every wall if that’s what you want.”
“My mom would most likely kill me if I did that. One shade for everything, she’d be fine with that. A different shade for every wall, not so much.”
“Well, let’s keep Mama happy,” Mitch said.
They spent some time making a list of the various areas, Mitch scribbling things down in the notebook he’d brought with him. Belle watched his hand grip the pen as it made broad strokes across the paper. She found herself admiring his organization, grateful that she could trust him with the details of the renovations without having to hound him.
“I think that covers most the areas,” Mitch said as he ripped the paper from the notebook. He handed it over to her then asked, “Have you been to the building lately?”
“Not this week. Dealing with the car stuff kind of kept me close to the office. How’s it looking?”
“I think it’s looking good. We’re still on schedule, which is part of the reason I wanted to meet with you about the paint. We’re getting closer to needing it, so I want to have that figured out. You should come by some time this week. See it for yourself.”
“Maybe on Monday. I’m taking the day off for a change.”
“For a change?”
“Given I usually work Saturdays, I sometimes take Mondays off. I don’t have any appointments lined up for this Monday, so I’m going to take the day off. Run some errands. Do some laundry. All that good stuff.”
“I’m usually at the site in the morning, but you’re welcome to stop by any time. Mark will be there all day, and he could show you around.”
Belle preferred Mitch as her tour guide, but she didn’t want to actually come out and say that in case it made things a bit awkward. “I’ll see how the day pans out.”
They both declined the offer of dessert when the waitress came back around, and once again, they paid for their meals separately. Mitch didn’t even appear to want to argue with her about that. Which was just as well.
“So maybe I’ll see you Monday,” Mitch said as they stood outside the restaurant. “Thanks for meeting up with me about this painting stuff.”
“You’re welcome. Just glad you’re willing to work around my hours since they can be a bit wonky.”
“It’s fine. Have a good weekend,” Mitch said, then waited for her to get into her car before walking to where he’d parked his truck.
As Belle drove home, she found herself wishing that she’d met someone like Mitch before she’d met Andre. Maybe things would have unfolded differently for her. Maybe she would be the sort of person that would have planned a wedding for herself. That would have been waiting for a man to love.
Instead, she wasn’t sure she could ever find a way to be as vulnerable as was needed to be in a relationship. In a marriage. She couldn’t be that vulnerable ever again. Even for a guy as nice as Mitch. And that was assuming that he would want to be with someone like her in the first place. She’d thought maybe he was interested in her, which was why she’d insisted on things not being a date, but ever since then, his interactions with her had been friendly, if not a little professional.
Which is exactly how she wanted things.
Right?
Mitch parked in the church’s parking lot, still a bit uncertain about why he’d chosen to come. He hadn’t been to the singles’ Bible study in several months, choosing instead to focus on his work with the teen boys. He also preferred to go to the men’s Bible study that Bennett and Ethan led each week. Attending the singles’ study had been a bit of a distraction for him, so he’d chosen to focus on the other groups.
But with his affections so centered on Belle, a woman unavailable to him, Mitch knew his only chance at moving on was to be around other Christian women. Not necessarily to start dating someone right away, but to remind himself that if he wanted to meet the type of woman he hoped to marry, being a part of a Bible study where single women were present was a good place to start.
With a sigh, Mitch pushed the truck door open and got out. He was surprised that there was more than just a handful of cars in the parking lot. The church didn’t have a Sunday evening service except for once a month. The other Sundays, they encouraged small groups to get together. Most of those were held in homes, but the singles met at the church.
“Callaghan!” a male voice called out as he walked into the fireside room where the singles’ group met.
Mitch smiled at the guy coming toward him. A lanky man with a shock of auburn hair that kind of looked like he’d just rolled out of bed or that he’d just spent the last few hours running his hands repeatedly through it.
“Hey, Leon,” Mitch said as he held out his hand. “Nice to see you.”
“It’s been awhile. Uh…” Redness started to creep up his neck.
Deciding to give the guy a break, Mitch said, “I’m Mitch. And just for future reference, Gabe walks with a bit of a limp now and usually has a pretty Asian woman in his vicinity.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” The man’s head bobbed up and down. “I kinda thought it was you but didn’t want to make a mistake.”
Mitch clapped him briefly on the shoulder. “You wouldn’t have been the first, and you won’t be the last.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Leon said with a lopsided grin.
When Leon headed off to greet someone else who had just come through the door, Mitch wandered over to the table where a couple of carafes of coffee sat along with hot water for those that preferred tea, and some juice. He poured himself a cup of coffee then turned to face the room.
“Well, look who the cat dragged in.”
Mitch glanced over to see a familiar face at his elbow. “Hey there, Denise.”
The woman smiled up at him, affection in her gaze. “I didn’t expect to see you here tonight. What brings you by?”
He sighed. “I’m not altogether sure, but it’s nice to see you.”
“You, too.” She slipped her hand through his elbow. “Let’s go sit.”
Mitch let her guide him to a couple of armchairs. After they’d settled in and taken a couple sips of their coffee, Mitch sighed. “Just dealing with some stuff. Thought I might come and see some friendly faces.”
Denise stared at him, her gaze intent. Her bright blue gaze had always been direct. Sometimes piercing. Sometimes intense. Sometimes laughing. It had been one of the things that had drawn Mitch to her at first. They’d dated for about three months before they’d both decided they were better off as friends.
She had just been the latest in—while not a long line—a line still the same, of women who found him a better friend than a boyfriend. The others hadn’t bothered to keep up the friendship, but Denise had. In fact, she’d gone with him to the double wedding that Bennet and Grace had had with Sammi and Levi back in February. They’d been after him about bringing a date, so he’d finally just shown up with an ex-girlfriend. That had shut them up. Briefly.
“Sure you don’t want to talk about it?” Denise asked. “You know I’m a good listener.”
“Yeah. That you are.”
“Well, if you’re not here to talk to me, I’m going to take your appearance as a sign.”
Mitch frowned. “A sign of what, exactly?”
“A sign that I should call in the favor you owe me.” She gave him a mischievous look. “And demand that you accompany me to a wedding.”
“Seriously?” Mitch dropped his head against the back of the armchair.
“Well, of course, seriously. I went with you to your family’s wedding, after all. I figure it’s about time for you to repay the favor.”
“What happened with that guy you were hoping would ask you out? Can’t he go with you?”
“Nah. I kind of made my interest known—subtly—but he’s either clueless or not interested. Either way, I think I’d rather have you come with me.” She grinned at him. “I think I’d enjoy being there with someone I don’t need to worry about having to impress.”
“Nice.” Mitch rolled his eyes at her. “How do you know I’m not dating someone?”
“I doubt you’d be here if that were the case. This is a singles’ group, remember.”
“You’re still single until you’re married. Dating doesn’t mean I’m not single anymore.”
“Well, that’s true.” Denise leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs. “So, are you? Dating someone?”
“No. Can’t say that I am.” Mitch sighed, his gaze following people as they began to settle into chairs around the room in preparation for the study.
Denise reached over to pat his arm. “It’ll happen one of these days. For both of us.”
“Would have been so much easier if we could have just found what we were looking for in each other,” Mitch murmured.
“Yep,” Denise agreed with a sigh. “Much easier.”
As the room fell quiet, Mitch turned his focus to the man who stood to open their meeting with prayer. Usually, he participated in the studies he attended, but that night, Mitch just listened, taking in the thoughts and observations of the others present. They were working through a six-part study, and it appeared they were on week three where they were discussing how to embrace single life and face its challenges while waiting for marriage.