All the while he had been in the city, his thoughts had never been more than a heartbeat from Natalie. Blessedly, they had been able to get through to Meghan on the radio daily, but David needed to see Natalie with his own eyes, needed to hear her voice one last time before she flew away from him.
Natalie smelled the tangy, masculine scent of him even before she opened her eyes and saw David Chambers sitting in the chair beside her bed. The fluttering of her heart revealed her true feelings, and she was afraid she would cry at the sheer relief of finding him here.
He sat with his head down, so stock-still that for a moment she wondered if her imagination had conjured him. She freed her hand from the light blanket that covered her and reached out to touch his arm.
He started and turned toward her. The smile on his weary face was greeting enough.
“Natalie.”
“David, you’re back,” she croaked.
He nodded. “How are you feeling?”
She gave a little shrug. Her head still hurt too much to waste words.
“Here,” he said, offering a fresh glass of water with a bent straw.
She took a sip, her eyes meeting his over the rim of the glass. The water felt cool on her throat, but it was agony to swallow.
David patted her arm. “You’re getting better,” he told her. “Meg is pleased with your progress.”
He cleared his throat in a way that made Natalie study his eyes again.
“I’m going back today,” he told her. He looked at the floor. “There’s no reason for me to stay—” He cleared his throat again and started over. “I need to get back, Nattie. I’ve lost days as it is. Your parents will be in Bogotá in a couple of days. You’ll be fine here until they can fly you out.”
The lump in her throat was not a result of the malaria. She stared at him, her mind reeling. The fact that he’d offered excuses before she’d even protested was not lost on her. “When … when will I see you again?” she whispered.
David ducked his head. “I don’t know. There’s no telling how long it will be before it’s safe again.”
“I’m afraid,” she breathed.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Natalie. You’ll be safe here now. That’s why we—”
“No, David. You don’t understand. I’m— I’m afraid I’ll never see you again.”
“Stop it, Natalie.” His gaze pierced her, then he turned his eyes to the floor. “Maybe it’s for the best.”
“David, listen to me.” The force of her words started a coughing fit. When she finally quieted, he offered her another sip of water. But she wasn’t finished. “I don’t think I could stand it if I thought I’d never see you again.” Every syllable that she choked out brought agonizing pain, but she could not fly away from this place until she’d let him know how she felt.
“I am coming back,” she said now, with as much emphasis as her voice could muster. “I know you might not believe that, but Timoné is my home now. I know I’m not well enough yet, but as soon as I am, I’m coming back.”
She reached out and took his hand in hers. She could scarcely believe she was being so bold with him. “David, I love you. I love you in a way I’ve never loved anyone before. I— I can’t go back without telling you that—”
He reared back in his chair and pulled his hand out of her grasp.
She shook her head and forged on, knowing she sounded desperate and not caring, “Maybe I’m a hundred miles off, David, but I … I think you have feelings for me too. I don’t know what it is that has made you put up these walls between us. It doesn’t matter to me what it is. I—”
“Natalie. Stop. You don’t even know me. There are … too many things you don’t … too many regrets …” he finished weakly.
She squeezed his arm. “Believe me, David, I know all about regret. Aren’t you the one who taught me that it was arrogance to go on blaming ourselves for what can never be changed? But isn’t that just what you’re doing by refusing to allow yourself a chance to love again?”
Her words betrayed what her father had told her about David, but he didn’t seem to notice. He gazed into her eyes, and Natalie thought she detected a spark of hope in their depths.
“Let me love you, David. Please. And give yourself a chance to love me in return.”
He put a cool hand to her cheek, and there was an exquisite tenderness in his touch. He started to say something, then abruptly pulled his hand away and pushed his chair back from the bed. He stood as though it took great effort, raised a hand in an awkward wave, and turned and went from the room.
Her head hurt too much to cry, so she sent up a silent prayer instead.
The water churned brown and syrupy beneath the outboard motor. David slapped at a mosquito the size of a horsefly. Anxious as he was to get back to Timoné and the work he’d been called to do there, still his heart was heavy. The village wouldn’t be the same without her. He could no longer deny that Natalie Camfield had added something to his life that he hadn’t admitted was missing.
And yet the words she had spoken to him this morning had sent a chill through his bones. Surely she couldn’t have known that they were the very words Lily had used. The exact words! I love you in a way I’ve never loved anyone before. It had to mean something. It had to be some kind of sign. It was what Lily had told him when he’d tried to break things off with her. She had been too young. He was her teacher! The memories came flooding back, and he hung his head with the weight of the shame they brought.
He thought—he needed to believe—that for Natalie the words had come from her heart. But for Lily, they had been mere words … words meant to manipulate and control. And he’d been so starved for love that he’d fallen for them like a lead anchor. They were the words that had been his undoing.
The boat rounded a wide curve at full throttle, and within a few minutes Timoné’s dock came into view. Juan Miguel shut off the motor and put a paddle into the water, maneuvering toward the landing. David shook the thoughts from his mind and went to help.
He was anxious to see Nathan Camfield. He knew that Nate’s spirits, too, would be low at Natalie’s absence. He took a deep breath and willed himself to be cheerful for his friend’s sake. He could offer Nate good news of his daughter. She was growing stronger each day, and soon her family would be in Bogotá where there was an airline ticket back to the States with Natalie’s name on it.
As he stepped into the tepid water to moor the craft, he cursed that ticket under his breath.
Nathan pushed back the bench on which he was sitting and looked across the table where David Chambers sat. He didn’t like the look on David’s face one bit. Though his colleague had insisted that Natalie was gaining strength each day and that Meghan Middleton was delighted with her progress, Dave’s expression seemed to indicate otherwise. As much as he would miss Natalie here, he could scarcely wait for her to be safely back in the States, getting the best medical care and the pampering she needed to fully recover.
He had been crazy to permit her to come here in the first place. God had been gracious in allowing malaria to be the worst thing that Natalie had suffered. She could have been kidnapped or killed by the guerrillas that had raided Timoné. She could have died before David got her to Conzalez. He looked at David again and was certain that the barely concealed anguish on the man’s face indicated some horrible truth about Natalie that he wasn’t revealing.
“Dave, there’s something you’re not telling me,” he finally blurted. “Give it to me straight. It’s Natalie, isn’t it?”
To Nate’s astonishment, David Chambers put his head in his hands and groaned. Nate’s heart began to pump double-time. He reached across the table and put a hand on David’s shoulder. “What is it? Dave, what’s wrong?”
David shook his head and stroked his beard as Nate had often seen him do when he was upset.
“Is it Natalie?”
“Oh, it’s Natalie, Nate, but not in the way you’re thinking. Her health is fine. She
’s going to be all right. It’s just—”
Nate looked at his friend’s anguished face, and a strange bubble of joy rose in his throat. “Would I be way off base if I guessed that you are in love with my daughter?”
David stared at him, his lips a thin line of concentration, as though he were trying to decide how to answer. Finally he sighed and the dam broke. “I do love her, Nate. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen … to fall in love with her. I swear to you, I tried everything in my power not to love her. But I do. I do …”
Nate smiled sadly. “David, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that she loves you in return. Have you told her how you feel?”
He wagged his head. “No. But she told me that she … that she loves me.”
“Ah,” Nate said simply.
When the silence between them grew deafening, Nate again put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “And now she’s gone, is that it?”
No response.
“David … Son, if I know my daughter, there will be nothing that can keep her from coming back to you.” He was surprised at the comfort he found for his own soul in those words.
But David’s reaction startled him. “She can’t come back, Nate. I’m no good for her. She doesn’t know … the truth about me.”
Nate sighed. “Are you still wrestling with that old demon?” he asked, not unkindly. David had told him about his affair with a student when he had been a new professor. The girl had seduced him and then cried “rape” to her wealthy and influential father. It had been a hard lesson, but it had ultimately brought David to the Lord, and thus to Timoné. He’d thought David had seen that hallowed facet of the situation long ago, but judging by the pain still written on his face now, he had a ways to go to accept it. “Let it go, David. It’s all past. It was forgiven long ago. I know your fine mind realizes that. Now let your heart believe it too.”
“No, Nate. You don’t understand. There’s … there’s more to it than I’ve told you.”
He looked hard at David. “I see. Do you want to talk about it?”
“If I tell you, I’d just be trying to get it off my chest. You’re right. I know it’s been forgiven. But … it’s one thing to allow myself to feel forgiven—and quite another to expect someone else … Natalie … to forgive. You know as well as I do, Nate, that sometimes—in spite of the forgiveness God offers—we suffer the consequences of our sin forever.”
“Well, at least until heaven,” Nate corrected. “I admit you have me curious, but it’s up to you if you want to talk.”
When David finally spoke, his voice was a tormented monotone, “Lily became pregnant.”
“Oh.” That explained a great deal. “So you have a child.”
“Oh, dear God, Nate, I wish I did have a child!” David cried, putting his face in his hands. “No. I destroyed my child. I destroyed a precious life. Lily had an abortion. An abortion that I paid for, that I wanted … and encouraged.”
Nate touched David’s arm softly. “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m truly sorry.” He was surprised by the confession and disappointed. And yet he understood only too well how a man could make such an ugly choice. Though he hadn’t succumbed, he had faced a similar temptation in his own time of trial.
The years fell away and he remembered, as though it were yesterday, the day he had been with Daria when she went into premature labor with Cole Hunter’s child— Natalie’s sister Nicole. That baby had stood in the way of his being reunited with the wife he loved with all his heart. For one awful moment that day, Nate had considered ignoring the gift of his medical knowledge and skills. For too many incriminating minutes, he had done nothing, had considered letting nature take its course, letting Daria deliver the baby prematurely.
David Chambers pulled his arm from under Nate’s touch, and the action shook Nate from his disturbing reverie.
Now David crossed his arms over his broad chest and hung his head in shame. “I don’t deserve to ever have a child. And that’s why I can’t love Natalie … why I can’t allow her to love me.”
“What you did was not the unforgivable sin, David.”
Nate wasn’t sure David had heard him, for he went on, a haunted dullness in his eyes. “Natalie will be a wonderful mother. Have you seen her with the children? She just shines when she’s with them. She— She deserves a chance to have children of her own.”
Nate made his tone stern. “What are you talking about, David? You’ve been forgiven.”
“Sin … sin has consequences, Nate. I’m not doubting my forgiveness. Truly, I’m not. I accepted that long ago—gratefully. But I know there have to be consequences.” David looked at him with pleading in his eyes.
“So you’ve decided that the best penalty for your particular sin is that you’ll never be allowed to know the love of a woman again?” David rubbed his temples and nodded, but Nate thought he saw a spark of hope in the tortured eyes.
“I— It only seems right.”
“Oh, Dave … you are so wrong. What happened to all that mercy I heard in your voice when Natalie was going through her ordeal? Why are you so quick to offer her a clean slate and so determined to mete out a harsh judgment for yourself?”
“It’s what I deserve.” But the words sounded far more like a question than a verdict.
Nate shook his head and laughed softly. “Dave, Dave. You belong to the King, man. You don’t get what you deserve. You’ve been bought back from all that. Redeemed. Remember?”
He put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “David, if there are to be consequences, let God decide what they are. I have a feeling you’re far harder on yourself than the Almighty is.”
David looked across at him, and his face relaxed. “Except for Lily, I’ve never talked to anyone about that.”
“And you’re still breathing, aren’t you?” Nate smiled at him. “You still have a problem, though.”
David lifted an eyebrow in question.
“My daughter still loves you.”
David looked Nate in the eye and ask haltingly, “So … if I asked your permission to love your daughter … even across the miles … knowing what you know, you’d still give your approval?”
Nate beamed. “Heartily. Heartily, Dave. My approval, my blessing, even a share of my bank account, such as it is …”
A slow smile spread across David’s face. A smile that said more than could ever be put into words.
Forty–One
Natalie opened her eyes and gave a little gasp. David Chambers was sitting in the chair beside her bed, watching her. Why was he here? She sat up and looked around the room, confused. She was still in Hank and Meg’s guest room. The prayer calendar on the wall was turned to July 25. The day after tomorrow she was supposed to fly to Bogotá. And then home with Mom and Daddy. Had something happened to them?
“David?” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and focused on his face, waiting for the lightheadedness to pass. “What are you doing here?”
“You look wonderful,” he said quietly. “It’s good to see some pink back in your cheeks.”
“I thought you weren’t coming back … before I left,” she said. “Is everything all right with Dad?”
“He’s fine. He misses you, though.”
“Then … I don’t understand …”
David stood and paced the short length of the room. Natalie sat on the edge of the bed watching him. She started to get up, but when he noticed he came and sat back down, motioning for her to stay. He took her right hand and enfolded it in both of his. Her pulse quickened as their eyes met.
“I … I have no idea how to say this.” He gave a little laugh. “I’m a linguist, Natalie. Words are my business. But I— I can’t seem to find the words I need now. In any language.”
She waited impatiently, daring to hope that he was here for the reason she ached for him to be here.
“I want another chance,” he said finally. “A chance to love you, a chance to deserve the love … the miraculous love …
you have for me.” He dipped his head, then looked her in the eye. “But there are some hard things I have to tell you first.”
She waited, her eyes never leaving his face.
“Your dad has helped me see these things in a different light. And for that I will be eternally grateful. But you need to know the truth about my life—my past. All of it.”
He took a deep breath, and his story poured out of him. “Natalie, I was in love once before. Or I should say I thought I was in love. I know now that it was a cheap imitation … of what I feel for you.”
She offered a wan smile, but David shook his head, as if he couldn’t accept her warmth until he’d finished his story.
“The girl was my student. She was … a teenager … in her first year at the university, and she had a foolish infatuation with me. I—” David hung his head and swallowed hard before he went on. “We had an affair.”
Now he looked up at her, as if to gauge her reaction. She gave a slight nod, urging him to continue.
“Lily … got pregnant and … told her father I had forced myself on her. The whole affair turned into a scandal on the campus.” David let go of her hand and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I’m so sorry, Natalie. I wish I didn’t have to tell you this … this ugly truth.”
“Please, David. I want to hear it.”
“Her father was furious. He was an alumnus of the college and one of their biggest contributors. He threatened to withdraw his financial support if I didn’t resign. He wanted Lily to get an abortion. And … so did I. Without my teaching job, I was in no position to support a child. My reputation had been ruined, and I was afraid I would never teach again. So I paid for her abortion. I went with her and sat in that waiting room, knowing full well what was happening to her in the back room. I resigned, and I … never saw Lily again.”
After the Rains Page 34