Rafe seemed to be looking right through her—and she felt as if she could see through him as well. Something had to give. Someone had to surrender. Daisy couldn’t make the full leap, but she could reach across the chasm with an I’m-here-for-you smile.
“Are you nervous about going back to work?” she asked.
“A little.” He gave an offhand shrug. “I’m prepared, but I’ll be glad to get the first night under my belt. I haven’t lost my situational awareness, but it might be rusty.”
“What’s situational awareness?”
“Taking in your surroundings. Knowing when a door opens. Staying aware of what’s behind you.”
As a former victim of violence, Daisy possessed some of those skills. “Like that night you changed my tire. I knew where you were every minute.”
“Exactly.” A smile pushed away whatever worries remained. “As I recall, you were ready to hose me down with pepper spray. That moment changed our lives.”
“Yes, it did.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Whatever the future holds, you’ll do great, Rafe. I know it.”
Longing glistened in his eyes. She knew he loved her. Needed her—needed to know she believed in him. With her heart spilling over, she crossed the room, wrapped him in a hug, and squeezed with all her might. They clung to each other for a solid minute, until Rafe loosened his arms. “I have to get to Heritage House. I called Jesse about the departure date, but Ben doesn’t know yet.”
Rafe glanced out the window, then focused back on her face. “It’s been good here, Daisy. I’ve never been happier.”
She opened her mouth but stopped. Don’t say it! Just don’t! But the words squeaked through her lips. “Has it been good enough to stay—or to come back and stay?”
“I don’t know.” Impatience leaked into his voice. “All I can promise is that I’ll think about it. You know what’s at stake for me—for us.”
“I do.” Money. Security. A future. And though he didn’t mention it during the talk they’d had a few nights ago, his personal happiness was on the line. She forced air into her lungs. “You need to see Ben, and I need to check in with Miss Joan.”
“Has she made a decision about the giveaway?”
“Not yet. But she’s been on the phone with Patrick Coogan every day this week. I think she’s talking to him now.”
“It sounds pretty definite.”
“I think it is.”
He looked into her eyes. “We have four days. Let’s make the most of them.”
“Yes.”
He trailed his knuckles down her cheek, then gripped her hand and squeezed as if they were about to jump off a cliff together. “I love you, Daisy,” he murmured. “I do.”
“I love you, too.”
He brushed a soft kiss on her lips, let go of her hand, and walked out the door, leaving her alone with a conflicted heart.
Chapter 32
Now that I am old and gray,
do not abandon me, O God.
Let me proclaim your power to this new generation,
your mighty miracles to all who come after me.
Psalm 71:18 (NLT)
When I slammed the phone down on Trey Cochran back in 1972, I ended that part of my life as deliberately as a surgeon amputated an arm or a leg. I endured phantom pain for the next several months, at least that’s how I thought of it, but the relationship was over—except for the part of me that needed to heal.
Today, when I called Patrick Coogan with the news I’d selected his organization to take over Cottonwood Acres, the experience couldn’t have been more different. A bone-deep satisfaction settled into my aging body. I’d healed from the affair decades ago, but the completion of the giveaway added a lovely epilogue to my story.
I had expected the moment to be bittersweet, but I couldn’t stop grinning as I hurried down the hall to share the news with Daisy.
When I rounded the corner to her office, Daisy was seated on the love seat, slumped over with her head in her hands, and her shoulders pulled so tight I thought her bones might crack.
I sat down and put my arm around her shoulders. “Daisy, honey. What’s the matter?”
She leaned into me for a hug. “He’s leaving.”
“Rafe?” It wasn’t really a question, or even a surprise. With Rafe returning to Ohio, they were on a collision course with a painful good-bye, temporary or not.
Daisy cast a stormy look across the room. I followed her gaze to a vase full of glorious red roses and knew something big was up.
“Did you two have a quarrel?” I asked.
“Not even close.” She flopped back against the couch and crossed her arms, the picture of how I would imagine her as an adolescent. “If he did something wrong or stupid, I could break up with him. That would be easy. But no—” She sealed her lips but misery squeaked out of her. “He’s being completely reasonable; only a little bit selfish—maybe, and just plain old responsible. I can’t stand it.”
“What exactly happened?” Frankly, I couldn’t see the problem.
“Cincy PD wants him to start work on July 10 instead August 1. He’s leaving in just four days.”
“I see.”
For the next few minutes, I listened while Daisy poured her heart out. She was determined to visit Rafe in the fall, but fear, dread, and more than a little resentment tainted what should have been an exciting time in her life. My news about the giveaway would add to her conundrum, so I decided to save it for later. “Are you sure you still want to visit Cincinnati?”
“Yes. But you know how I feel about leaving Refuge.”
“I do.” I paused. “I also know that change is inevitable—for both of us.”
“I just don’t know what to do. Part of me wants to just end it with Rafe now just to make the confusion stop.”
“Oh, Daisy—”
“What?”
“If you think ending the relationship will free you from the fallout of loving Rafe, you’re dead wrong.” I know I sounded pompous, but I was speaking from experience.
She turned to me, her eyes as bleak as winter. “Could we have a toast party?”
I opened my mouth to say yes, but human wisdom wouldn’t ease the ache in Daisy’s soul. She needed far more than my advice to reconcile the demands of her heart. She needed a touch that could only come from God. But God uses people, and I was the only other person in the room.
Whether Daisy could see the big picture or not, God was working in her life, just as he had worked in mine. In that moment, looking at this struggling young woman I loved, I knew what to do, where to go, and exactly what I needed to say.
“A toast party isn’t enough.” I stood and used the desk phone to call Cliff. “Could you have someone bring the Mule to the house for me? Daisy and I are taking a ride.”
When I set down the phone, Daisy looked at me with a plea in her eyes. “Where are we going?”
“To church,” I told her, smiling a little. “It’s an unconventional one, but a place of worship nonetheless.” As I turned to leave, the pages on her desk caught my eye and I stopped. “Oh my. Is that our book?”
“Yes. FedEx just dropped off the proof sheets.”
Wonderment flooded through me as I leafed through the first chapter. I’d written the words and seen the photographs on a computer monitor, but seeing the actual pages affected me in a new way. The book was done; my story told. “It’s beautiful, Daisy. You did an excellent job.”
“Thank you,” she said demurely. “But the words are yours.”
“The book belongs to both of us.” An indescribable contentment left me breathless. “Now we have two reasons to visit the spot I have in mind.”
I turned to leave for a second time, but the roses in the corner were terribly out of place. They wouldn’t open in the dim light, so I crossed the office, picked up the vase, and set it on the coffee table in front of Daisy. “They need sunlight to open.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but I shook my head. “We’ll talk
when we get to the river.”
I went upstairs, changed into outdoor clothes, then went to the kitchen and told Ana I’d be gone all afternoon.
“Would you like me to pack a lunch?” she asked.
“No. I’ll get what we need.”
I found the insulated bag I hadn’t used in ages, packed the two items I needed, and went to meet Daisy at the Mule.
I didn’t speak as we drove down the road we’d taken on the day I first told her about the giveaway. Heritage House loomed to the right, on schedule for completion in the fall. We passed the historic homestead and the cemetery without stopping, and I slowed to a crawl for the Yee-Haw Dip, barely making a splash as we crossed the rushing current.
When we crested the hill above the river and the bench, I slowed to soak in the grandeur of the view. The vastness of the land, the sparkle of the river, and the beauty of the sky turned me into the speck of dust I was. Aware of my human frailty, I prayed for God to meet Daisy in the place where I’d faced my greatest failure and found God’s greatest gifts—forgiveness, mercy, and hope.
I parked the Mule several feet from the river, retrieved the insulated bag, and set it on the bench. Daisy stood by the water, her hands behind her back, chin raised to the sky.
“I love it here,” she murmured.
“So do I.” I stood by the bench. “Come and sit with me.”
She turned around and smiled. “I see what you mean about ‘church.’ It’s impossible to stand here and not think about God creating all of this.” She swept her arm to indicate the meadows and sky, earth, and clouds.
“He created us, too.”
She dropped down next to me. “I believe that, Miss Joan. I do. But why does it have to be so hard?”
“I won’t lecture you about free will, but I will say we’re created in God’s image. We have the capacity to think and to reason—and to feel. Christian believers—especially those like me who came to know Christ later in life—often have stories to tell. You know most of mine.”
“About Trey.”
“Yes. I fully acknowledge the affair was wrong by every standard I wanted to uphold in that time of my life. But that sin—that shame—knocked me off the high horse of thinking I was my own god. The affair was a wrecking ball in more ways than one. But it led to my personal Damascus Road experience. You know the story about Paul, don’t you?”
“He killed Christians—a man named Stephen. But then something happened and Paul was in the middle of nowhere when God struck him blind.”
“That’s right. God struck him blind,” I repeated. “Can you imagine how Paul felt for those three days?”
“Scared—no.” She shook her head. “He must have been terrified. And maybe angry. And confused.”
“I imagine so,” I replied. “I relate to Paul rather strongly. God restored my vision, too—not literally, of course—but it was on this very spot that I surrendered my life to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Frankly, that moment was rather brutal.”
“How so?” Daisy asked. “My own experience was so different.”
I’d heard of conversion stories like Daisy’s, where light comes out from behind the clouds and God seems to smile, but mine couldn’t have been more opposite.
“I’m glad for you, Daisy.” I gave her hand a squeeze. “But for me, the moment was dark. Everything I believed about myself had been proven a lie. All I could do was weep until there were no tears left. I prayed like a pioneer woman lost in a blizzard, begging God for his help and mercy when I deserved none of it.”
Daisy spoke for me. “He answered that prayer.”
“Yes, he did. And like I feared, it changed me. I thought differently, and it impacted every choice I made. I continued to teach about strong women and the American West because those stories are true and deserve to be told. But I included the faith it took to venture into unknown territory. Our ancestors didn’t know what the future held, but they tackled it with great courage and endurance. Those are the most basic elements of faith.”
“That was me when I first came to Refuge,” Daisy murmured. “I trusted God for everything when I came out of the ICU. Why is it so much harder now?”
“Because you have something to lose.”
“That’s it exactly.”
“So did I when I finally surrendered my life to God. It was a dreadful day in January when I rode to this spot alone. The wind was howling so loud I couldn’t hear anything else, and my face was so cold my cheeks were on fire. But I didn’t care. The affair had been over for three months, but I couldn’t shake the emotions boiling inside of me—and I do mean boiling.”
I heaved a sigh, not wanting to think of those days, but Daisy needed to know that she wasn’t alone. “In my head I told Trey off a dozen times a day, or I imagined he left Kathy and showed up on my doorstep hat in hand, convincingly remorseful. I watched his episodes of Thunder Valley just to torture myself.”
Daisy clapped her hand over her mouth, then gasped. “You have an evil twin like I do!”
“An evil twin?” I thought I knew what she meant but wanted to be sure.
“That’s what I call the mean voice in my head that just won’t shut up.”
I couldn’t stop a smile. “My evil twin is more of a self-righteous know-it-all. She’s convinced the world would be a perfect place if people just took her advice. We both know that’s not true.”
“No,” Daisy agreed diplomatically.
“Human beings need a Savior. You and I are sinners saved by grace. That gift came at great cost, and it’s a gift to cherish. That’s why I brought the elements for communion.”
Daisy pressed her arm against mine. I felt her shaking and realized she had started to cry. “We’re having a toast party with God.”
“Yes. I suppose we are.”
I lifted the insulated bag from under the bench, removed the slice of bread I’d brought and tore it in two. Then I repeated words I’d memorized during the years I went regularly to church.
“This is his body, broken for us.” We ate the bread of life in silence.
Next I opened a small bottle of grape juice. “This is his blood, shed for our sins.” Daisy sipped, then so did I.
We sat in silence for several seconds, each alone with our thoughts. The bench had been built as an altar in the wilderness—a place of surrender, thanksgiving, and sacrifice. Today it fulfilled its purpose once again.
Daisy had taken communion in church before, but never anywhere else. Yet the moment felt right, even holy. When she swallowed the grape juice, her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t know what the future held, but mentally she released her grip on the life she cherished and opened her hand to the future.
Peace settled into her bones, and with it came the awareness of Miss Joan murmuring a quiet “Amen.”
The lump in Daisy’s throat receded. “Thank you for today. I feel better.”
“I’m glad.” Miss Joan patted her hand. “Because there’s something I have to tell you, and it might rock the boat again.”
“The giveaway. You’ve made a decision.”
“Yes. I called Patrick this morning and gave him the good news. He was thrilled, and so am I. As of January 1, Cottonwood Acres will officially belong to Coogan Rodeo Enterprises. He’s putting together a transition team, so there will be some activity over the next few months. Plus I’ll need your help to finish setting up the displays at Heritage House.”
A knot formed in Daisy’s belly. Her job would end on January 1. “I’ll be here as long as you need me.”
“Thank you, dear. But there’s one more thing you need to know.”
“What is it?”
“Patrick wants to hire you as an administrative assistant to his new manager. The date is of your choosing—if you’re interested.”
“That’s . . . good.”
“And confusing,” Miss Joan added. “You don’t have to decide now, or even in the next few weeks. The transition will be slow and thorough.”
; Daisy suddenly felt selfish thinking only of herself. “What about you, Miss Joan? Are you still moving to Scottsdale?”
“Yes. In fact, I spoke to my friend Linda for an hour last night. A cute little house near hers is going on the market October 1. I just might fly out there and buy it.”
“It’ll be a huge change, won’t it?” Daisy couldn’t imagine Miss Joan living anywhere but Cottonwood Acres.
“Yes, but I’m excited about it—and a little relieved. At my age, a person wants to be close to medical care. Plus the community sounds like a lot of fun. Linda—the old lit professor—runs a book club and plays golf three times a week. Everyone drives around in golf carts, but I’m thinking of bringing the Mule.”
Daisy couldn’t help but grin. “You’d be a trendsetter.”
Chuckling softly, Miss Joan clasped her hands in her lap. “I’m sure I’ll make new friends. Linda tells me the community is full of interesting people who like to debate as much as I do, plus she and I plan to do some traveling. Cottonwood Acres was a lively place in its heyday, but that era is gone. It’s ready for a fresh start and so am I.”
“The new community sounds perfect for you.” Daisy couldn’t help but think of her own situation with Rafe. “Having a friend waiting makes it easier, doesn’t it.”
“Yes.” Miss Joan’s eyes misted. “Stay brave, Daisy. God will meet your needs, though perhaps in unexpected ways.”
“I believe that.”
“Good.” Miss Joan patted Daisy’s knee. “You never know—God just might use Rafe to change your life, and he just might use you to bless Rafe. In the end, God will accomplish his purposes. It’s a privilege when he allows us to participate.”
“I know what you mean.” When Daisy shared her story at AA meetings, joy spilled out of her, along with honest tears.
A Gift to Cherish (Road to Refuge Book 2) Page 27