Lori Toland - Worth the Wait.pdf

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Worth the Wait * Lori Toland
2
Chapter 1
T HE second hand on my watch slowly ticked off the seconds,
and I counted each precious moment as it passed, wishing I
wasn’t there. My mother was late again.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see her. She’s my mom; of
course I wanted to have lunch with her. But her concept of
time was skewed, so “noon” meant twelve thirty.
“I’m so sorry, Henry.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Standing up, I saw her
walking toward me. “I was starting to worry.”
As she rattled off her difficulties in getting there, I pulled
out her chair so she could sit down. When the waitress came
to get her drink order, she finally took a breath to look over
the menu.
I didn’t inherit my mother’s gift of gab. As a teenager, I
rarely came out of my room to talk, taking my meals in my
room as I worked on my latest project.
“I keep hoping you’ll bring a boyfriend to lunch,” she
said as the server left.
I groaned. “Isn’t this how we start every meal?”
“It will be until you show up with a significant other in
tow.”
I tried to glare at her, but staring down your mother is
like trying to stare down a cat; you might win but you will
feel the burn of their contempt for days afterward. Well, my
mom might forgive me if I apologize, but the cat won’t.
Worth the Wait * Lori Toland
3
“Don’t give me that look. You’re my only child. I won’t
rest until you’re happily partnered.”
“I’m married to work,” I quipped.
“Henry”
“Mom,” I said warningly. “Please don’t start. I’m working
on a really important deadline at work, and this topic of
conversation will just distract me.”
She wouldn’t drop it, but had she ever dropped a topic
she really cared about? My father would say no. “I just want
you to be happy.”
“I am . Happiness doesn’t come from having a partner. It
comes from within, finding who you are and understanding
yourself.”
“I was fine with the whole gay thing,” she said,
continuing on like I hadn’t spoken. She was right. My
parents had been fine about me coming out, even though my
mom had bemoaned being deprived of grandchildren
because I was her only child. “I just hate to see you alone all
the time. Don’t you get lonely?”
“No.”
She pursed her lips. “Henry Thomas Wallens, don’t lie to
your mother.”
I sighed. “I go out on dates, but I haven’t met anyone I
want to bring to you guys. Listen, can we drop this? I didn’t
agree to lunch so you could give me the third degree.”
My mother started to argue, but luckily the waitress
appeared with our drinks and salads, so the never-ending
nag cycle was broken. After she finished doctoring her iced
tea with huge amounts of sugar, she sat back in her chair
and took a long look at me. “You look good, although it’s
strange to see you without your glasses these days.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking a bite of salad. Getting the eye
surgery to correct my vision was the best thing I ever did. If I
Worth the Wait * Lori Toland
4
ever got sweaty mid project, my glasses would slip down my
nose. I couldn’t afford to make a mistake just because I
couldn’t see without my soda-bottle glasses.
“You look so much like Tommy,” she said.
I wiped my mouth. Her statement came out of left field,
and her sad expression tore at my heart. We all missed
Tommy, my mother’s older brother. He’d been one of the
military’s most brilliant minds and instrumental in fostering
my love for science.
She rarely brought him up, but I said the same thing I
always did when she told me how much I reminded her of
him. “That’s because I got your good looks. What can I say?
You have a good-looking family.”
She laughed and dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “You’re
a sweet boy.”
“I’m hardly a boy now,” I said. “I’m all grown up.”
She sniffled. “Yes, you are, but you’ll always be my little
Henry,” she said, turning to other topics that weren’t nearly
as touchy with me, like how my Aunt Trish was doing after
her horrible fall. But even after I left, my mind kept heading
back to our conversation.
She was right, as mothers normally were. I was lonely.
Spending nights at the lab was a regular occurrence,
especially since I was so close to my presentation date. I had
to have my project ready for the board of directors in six
months but I would have the extra stress of having the
founder of Leaf Industries there as well.
After marrying off nearly everyone we knew, Mom had
decided to turn her matchmaking skills on me. On dates, if
someone asked me what I did, ten seconds later, his eyes
would glaze over as I rattled off terms most people would
never begin to understand.
Worth the Wait * Lori Toland
5
At least I got laid on my dates. It was one night I didn’t
have to jerk off in the shower and I could give my hand a
rest. I did want to find love, but I also wanted a partner who
understood me when they asked me how my day was.
The men I went out with enjoyed my body, though. Once
I’d hit my growth spurt and lost all my baby fat, I started
running. I kept it up because it gave me more energy. Having
all that extra stamina meant I could stay up all night if I hit
a stride on my project. Like last night.
Back in the office, I hung up my coat and headed for my
lab. It was cozy and messy, just how I liked it. My desk sat
against the far wall, piled with parts from small electronic
devices I’d ordered from companies all over the world.
On my bulletin board, I’d tacked up the latest
schematics for the power source I was still working on.
Beneath all of that was the chief science officer’s scrawl.
Although he was a very busy man who traveled to his many
companies worldwide and I had never met him, he was also
the founder of Leaf Industries, so I knew I’d better listen to
him.
Think smaller ,
RG
I’d laughed when I read the note because I thought he
was completely crazy. There was no way to squeeze every last
piece of equipment I needed to regenerate power into such a
small space.
That note had ended up back on my desk eight months
ago. I’d spent day and night working on miniaturization, and
just this past week, I’d managed to get it right. The battery
fit into a small cell phone half the size of my palm, and I
picked it up to check the battery life on it.
For a week now, the battery hadn’t gone dead. Tiny
though it was, the energy inside would never die. The
theories I had of self-renewing energy were controversial at

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