Page 13 of Chance

“Chance,” she whispered, tapping his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

To her disappointment, there was nothing in it.

Someone cleared their throat. “Can I help you? Or can I at least tell you not to touch those things?”

They both turned to find a priest, wearing the white collar and all.

Chance put his hands up. “Sorry, Father. We were just letting curiosity get the better of us. We thought this church looked interesting.”

The priest studied them, his eyebrows low. “Well, we would prefer that our guests don’t touch things.”

Chance nodded. “Of course. My fault. Can you tell us anything about this church?”

Seemingly satisfied that they were contrite enough, the priest gestured around the church. “I imagine if you were doing any type of history online, you would see that this church is named after our Lady of Guadalupe. It burned to the ground, but it was rebuilt. A lot of the possessions in this church are old.” He nodded to the chest. “It is rumored that that chest came from a ship carrying the conquistador gold. You might have heard of it recently in the press.”

Chance nodded. “I have. In fact, one of our stopping points will be the Stone family inn. And we’re going to that museum in South Port tomorrow, right?” He nudged Kelly and then put his arm around her. “We just got married. She can’t get enough of this stuff.”

She was totally confused now. Her heart pounded and she didn’t know what was going on, but she took his cue. “Yeah.”

The priest’s whole demeanor changed. “Really? Congratulations. I’m happy to see that you’re spending your honeymoon in the South Port area. We have some of the best history here in Wilmington.” He moved them out toward the center of the church. “If you come this way, you’ll get to see one of the oldest crosses. This cross was rumored to be stolen by slaves from the conquistador ship.” There was a glint to his eye. “It’s our pride and joy that this cross, made of pure gold, was rescued from that ship. At least, that’s the story.”

She looked up at the gold cross, impressed by its size. It hadn’t caught her eye at first, but now that she looked at it, she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t seen it before. “It’s beautiful. I’m an artist, Father; would you mind if I take a picture of it?”

The priest waved a hand. “Of course. There are pictures online, but I think the story of this cross gets lost. The slaves took it and started their own church. It was a couple miles into the swampland. The church burned down, and years later, the cross was donated to our church. The story is that the slaves felt like our Lady of Guadalupe could protect it for them. And it has survived two other fires.” He sighed and gazed proudly at the cross. “It’s a real national treasure, if you ask me.”

Chance also snapped a picture. “Agreed. It’s magnificent.”

Kelly’s fingers already itched to paint it. She backed up and took a larger picture of the whole inside of the church. With the right filter, this would be art at its finest for certain buyers. Her mind raced with ideas of how she could market it. Maybe she could link it to the conquistador gold?

She still wasn’t sure about this whole situation, meeting Chance like this. As they talked to the priest and learned more about the history of the cross, she mused that even though Chance looked so different, the bond between them was as strong as ever, like they were on some sort of adventure together. Plus, he’d said they were married. That was weird. Why had he said that?

After a bit, the priest turned away from them. “Well, you can look around, or you can sit and ponder. I have duties to attend to.”

“Thank you for your time,” Chance said. Then he turned to her with a huge grin on his face. “Isn’t this cool? This cross looks like the exact one that was in my dad’s journal.” He began looking at the other artwork on the walls.

She tagged along with him. “It is cool. And I’m grateful that I came with you, because this has given me some great ideas for my gallery. But I still don’t understand what you’re doing and why you have pictures from your dad’s journal. Chance, what’s going on?”

Chance gestured toward the doors. “Should we leave?”

She nodded, and they went outside. He stopped in front and took a few more pictures of the church’s exterior. Like he was busying himself so he wouldn’t have to answer her questions.

“Chance, what are you doing here?”

“How about we go to dinner tonight and talk about it? I have to get back to South Port, but I could pick you up wherever you are. We can talk about everything.”

Part of her didn’t want to agree to dinner. It felt … contrived, maybe. She’d come to South Port looking to get away from her life, and now she was back in her past.

Not that he was Brian. She shuddered.

Chance frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said too quickly. She pulled her phone out and checked the time. The clinic was still open; she could make it. “I’m going to run the errands I was going to do. I can’t do dinner tonight. Maybe another day? After you tell me what you’re doing here.”

He flashed a grin. “I can’t tell you that, but I can tell you that I’ll tell you more at dinner tomorrow night. Should we say seven?”

With a bit of reluctance, she agreed. Her curiosity got the better of her. He handed her his phone, and she put in her contact details.

He smiled, looking like he wanted to hug her.

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