by Irene Brand
Summer returned to her office after the conference ended, but it wasn’t long before David wandered in, a bemused expression on his face. He perched on the edge of her desk.
“Do you realize what we were doing just now? We were making plans as if we intended to spend the rest of our lives at The Crossroads instead of the one year we promised.”
Summer tapped a pencil on the edge of her desk. “Yes, and that disturbs me! After just a few weeks, I’ve become so wrapped up in the lives of these students and the work of the school that I hardly ever think of New York. It’s like I’ve been transplanted to a new planet and my old life has been erased.”
“I didn’t know how much I was heading in that same direction until we had that meeting today. I’m constantly thinking about what needs to be done here.”
“I understand the dedication of Spring and Bert much better now. When you get caught up in other people’s problems, you don’t have time to think about yourself.”
“Both of us were self-centered, so perhaps this is a good lesson for us,” he said.
“You mentioned that your parents want us to bring Nicole and Timmy for Christmas in Tennessee, but when there are students left here, I rather hate to leave them. How about inviting your parents to come and spend Christmas with us?”
David brightened. “How nice of you to think of that, Summer. It’s been worrying me because my parents wouldn’t have either of their sons for Christmas, but I hadn’t thought of asking them to visit us. It really isn’t a long drive from Nashville, and I think they’ll come.” He leaned over and brushed his lips over hers. “You’re a sweetheart! Thanks.”
His touch was electrifying! Their gazes held and he put his hand on her shoulder and leaned over to kiss her again, but he drew back quickly when the office door opened and Edna walked in.
He felt so frustrated in his association with Summer. He’d looked forward to being at The Crossroads so they could explore a deeper relationship, but all of their time and conversation dealt with Timmy and Nicole or the administration of the school. They never had time for any personal communication.
Edna handed Summer a packet of mail she’d just gotten from the postman. And to cover the confusion she felt from David’s kiss, Summer said, “I hope those are contributions rather than bills. Our funds are getting low.”
“God will provide,” Edna said with confidence.
Edna closed the door behind her, and David tugged on Summer’s arms until she stood in his tight embrace. The mystery in his eyes attracted her, but something cautioned her to resist him.
“No, David,” she said fearfully, agitated by the strange surge of anticipation and the irregularity of her heartbeat. She struggled in his embrace, but his arms were like steel bands holding her close. David had always been so gentle before. She opened her mouth to protest, but he sealed her lips with his in a pleasurable kiss that Summer thought would never end. A caress that exhilarated her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Still holding her close, he lifted his lips and rested his chin on her soft hair.
When he realized that Summer was trembling in his embrace, he released her and lifted her chin. Her blue eyes brimmed with tears, reminding him of the ocean, and he was instantly contrite.
“Aw, Summer,” he said, but she twisted away from him and ran out of the office. Angrily swiping the tears from her eyes, she hurried along the path to the cabin. Her heart was pounding rapidly, and she found it difficult to breathe. She stopped in her tracks when a disastrous thought entered her mind. Was she falling in love with David? She’d never felt this way about any other man. Summer covered her face with her hands and groaned. She had enough trouble without that.
She couldn’t deal with this new emotion right now, and fearing that David might follow her, she dashed into the cabin and pulled a heavy jacket out of the closet. She put a granola bar and a bottle of water in her pocket and hurried away from the cabin and into the forest. She soon realized she’d gotten one of Spring’s jackets instead of her own, but she walked on for a mile or two, her thoughts and senses numb to what had happened in the office. Summer had never intended to fall in love with anyone. If she did love David, that would certainly complicate her life.
She reached a stony outcropping and sat down in a place warmed by the sun. Nibbling on the granola, she thought of what had happened between her and David. She’d always liked his kisses before, but today’s incident disturbed her so much because of her response to his kiss.
When Summer stuck the empty bar wrapper into her pocket, her hand encountered a book, and looking at it she saw it was a New Testament. Spring’s name was on the cover. She clutched the volume as if it were a lifeline. She no longer had control of her life, and in her inadequacy, she needed God’s guidance. What could she find to guide her in the present situation? She needed wisdom more than anything else, and in the past few weeks, Curtis’s sermons had convinced her that direction for any situation could be found in the Bible.
She found the verse for her needs today in the first chapter of James. “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.”
“God,” Summer prayed aloud. “I need wisdom—wisdom to deal with Timmy and Nicole, but more than anything else, I need wisdom to know how to handle this new feeling I have for David. Amen.”
Spiritually, Summer still lacked a lot before she could be the kind of follower God could use, but she did believe He’d heard the yearnings of her heart. She left the glade with a calmer spirit than she’d had for weeks.
As she passed through the forest where the chapel was located, the young chaplain was approaching the building.
“Curtis,” she said, “I’d like to talk with you sometime. I know you’re here to work with the students, and I hate to add to your workload, but I have so many spiritual doubts, and no one to talk to about them except you and Edna.”
“I’ll be glad to help you. We’ll find a time that’s convenient for both of us.” He patted her on the shoulder, making her feel like a child, rather than several years his senior.
David was already at the cabin, setting the table, when she returned.
“I have a casserole prepared,” she said. “I’ll put it in the oven.” She looked at the clock. “The kids should be home.”
“They asked me if they could play a while with their friends. I told them it would be all right.”
Did he have any idea why she’d run away today? The easy camaraderie she and David had shared on previous evenings while they’d prepared the meal was gone. She wanted to speak, but she couldn’t—their encounter earlier in the day stood in the way.
Fortunately, Timmy and Nicole soon came in, their faces flushed from the cold wind. Timmy had his coat slung over his shoulder.
“Timmy! You should wear your coat,” Summer said.
“I told him,” Nicole said. “He’s been playing without it since school was dismissed. He’ll be sick.”
“Timmy! Wear your coat from now on,” David ordered.
“Okay!” he said grumpily and threw his coat on the floor.
Summer knew he’d done it deliberately to annoy her, but she didn’t say anything as he turned on the television.
“Which reminds me, where’s the nearest doctor if someone does get sick?”
She didn’t direct the question to David, but he answered, “There’s a resident nurse at the elementary school, who also helps out at The Crossroads when necessary, but the nearest hospital is in Asheville.”
“Let’s hope we don’t need one, but thinking back to when we were children, it seems like one of us was sick most of the time during winter.”
David watched television with Timmy, and took care of hearing the children’s prayers. Wanting desperately to make amends for her attitude and to restore their easy fellowship, Summe
r walked with him to the door.
“I’m sorry I ran away this afternoon. I’m awfully confused. We’re in an awkward situation.”
David gave her a frank and admiring look and taking her hands he drew her toward him. “Forget everything about this afternoon except this,” he said, and gathering her into his arms he held her snugly. His finger tenderly lifted her chin, and with eyes locking, his lips pressed against hers. “I know I was to go slow on the kisses, but I got carried away today. It’ll be all right.”
She hadn’t yet gone to sleep when Timmy started coughing, but she lay still, hoping it would be temporary. In the middle of one severe coughing bout, he called, “Mommy.”
Although the children called her Auntie all the time now, quite often at nighttime, Timmy would yell “Mommy,” and she didn’t know if he wanted her or was still thinking about Spring.
She shivered into a robe and went to the bedroom. Nicole was sleeping, but Timmy sat up in the bed, his blue eyes looking alarmed in the dim light.
“I’m sick, Auntie.”
“I know.” She put her hand on his forehead, and it was hot to her touch. Although she hadn’t had any experience with doctoring children, she remembered what her mother had done when any of them had colds. She’d noticed that Spring had the same remedies in the medicine cabinet. “I’ll see what I can find to make you better.”
She gave him a spoonful of lemon-flavored cough syrup, a fever-reducing medicine, and rubbed his neck and chest with a medicated ointment—treatments that had always worked for the Weaver daughters.
“Lie down and try to sleep,” Autumn said as she tucked the covers around him. “I’ll sit on your bed until I’m sure you’re asleep.”
Timmy coughed several more times, but after an hour when he seemed to be breathing easier, Summer went back to her bed, but not to a deep sleep while she listened for Timmy to call. The next morning, he seemed better, but he still had a temperature, so she kept him home from school. She wrote David a note that she wouldn’t be coming to work and sent it by Nicole when she started out.
She gave Timmy a bowl of hot chicken broth for breakfast, and then made a bed for him on the couch. He was watching cartoons when David came in.
He playfully cuffed Timmy on the top of the head. “Hey, are you being lazy this morning?”
“Nope. I’m sick. Ask Auntie.”
“He’s better now, but he coughed a lot in the night, and he still has some temperature. Sorry to leave you with all the office work, but I thought he should stay home.”
“You don’t look like you had much rest, either,” he said as he poured a cup of coffee and sat down on the sofa beside Timmy.
“No, not much,” she agreed. “The cough syrup will make Timmy drowsy, and when he goes to sleep, I’ll take a nap.”
“No way!” Timmy said. “I’m gonna watch television all morning.” Summer didn’t respond for she’d learned that even if Timmy did put up a protest, however reluctantly, he always did what she told him.
Chapter Twelve
Edna had gotten a list of sponsors from the mission board, along with the permission to circulate a newsletter. David and Summer added names of their extended families, and impulsively she added the name of Mr. Abel in New York. Anita, Mayo and Skipper volunteered to help with the newsletter, and they were so thrilled with the project that they were willing to forgo their television programs, and every night for a week, Summer left David to oversee the children while she went to the office to work on the newsletter.
Skipper turned out to be proficient on the computer, and he was so excited to be working with Summer’s equipment that he begged to be allowed to design the masthead.
They’d agreed to head the newsletter, The Crossroads, with Galatians 6:10 quoted under the title, “As often as we have the chance we should do good to everyone, but especially to those who belong to our family in the faith.”
Skipper sketched in the rustic chapel on one side of the title, and on the other side, he illustrated the meeting of two roads. He had a lot of talent, and Summer was thankful that he’d come to The Crossroads where he would find the right direction for his life. The longer she worked at the school, the more she was convinced of the necessity for this type of institution. And according to the director of the mission board, they had applications every day for youth who needed a place to go, but The Crossroads couldn’t accommodate anymore residents. Even if the school didn’t reach the potential David and Summer envisioned, if more people knew about their work, perhaps monetary contributions would increase.
Anita circulated among the classes and wrote several articles about the work of the school. Summer made a few suggestions and corrections on grammar and punctuation, but basically, it was Anita’s composition.
Using a camera his father had given him, Mayo Sinclair discussed taking a picture of one of The Crossroads’ volunteers and scanning it into the paper.
“Why don’t you do an article on Hallie Blackburn?” Summer suggested. “She does a lot of hard work for very little pay, and I doubt she ever has compliments from any of you students. It would please her.”
“She won’t let me take her picture,” Mayo said.
“Then why not take a picture of the kitchen and put that in the paper. It wouldn’t hurt our readers to see that Hallie could use some new equipment.”
“Say! That’s not a bad idea. I’ll talk to her right away.”
They mailed the first issue the week after Thanksgiving, hoping to influence churches to increase their allocation to the school when they made their yearly budgets. While not counting too much on immediate results, Summer and David believed the newsletter would eventually benefit the school.
When David came in for supper on the first day of December, he said, “Have you heard the weather forecast?”
Summer was dropping biscuits on top of a chicken pot pie, and she said, “No, the children are still at school, and I haven’t turned on the television.”
“We’re supposed to have a foot or more of snow tonight and tomorrow.”
“That will really isolate us, won’t it?” Summer said in concern. She couldn’t get over her fear of being cut off from the rest of the world.
“Maybe, for a few days.”
“I’ll go back to the office and telephone my parents tonight. They’ll worry about us if we do have a bad storm.”
“That’s a good idea for the telephone lines could go down in a deep snow. Ask your folks to telephone Mom and Dad, so they’ll know we’re all right.”
Summer heard the wind rising during the night, and in spite of the heat from the gas furnace in the hallway, the house was cold. She was thankful that, a few weeks ago, David had hired Stonewall to provide logs for the fireplace, and Stonewall had stacked the wood on the porch, so they’d have easy access to it. If they lost electric power, the thermostat on the furnace wouldn’t work, but they could have some heat from the fireplace. Blowing snow splattered against the windows, and she expected a white world by morning.
She was still in bed when she heard steps on the porch and David called, “Summer.”
She put on her robe and opened the door for him. He was bundled in a heavy parka, covered with snow, and his eyes glowed with enjoyment.
“Everything okay?” he said. He shook the snow off his coat before he came into the cabin.
“It got cold in here during the night, and I thought I might have to light the wood in the fireplace. Is there a lot of snow?”
“About six inches and still coming down. This is the kind of snow that pulls trees down on the electricity lines, but I didn’t see any broken limbs along the trail.”
Summer flipped a switch, and the ceiling light came on. “At least we have a gas stove, so we can cook if the power goes off. Will we have school as usual?”
“As far as I know. One of the volunteers is cleaning off the grounds with a tractor and snowplow. We might have to use snowshoes to travel around the compound if the snow gets much deeper.
”
She eyed him, amazed at his enthusiasm. “The more I’m around you, the more I’m aware of how different our outlooks on life are.”
“Have you been looking for differences?”
“Not particularly, but I can’t help notice. Now, for instance. You’re as excited about this snow as if you were a kid looking for Santa Claus. I tend to be more practical, wondering if we’ll have enough food to last until the snow melts, trying to figure out how to cope if we lose electric power, concerned about how to get to a doctor if one of the kids get sick.”
“Why worry about things that may never happen?”
“A little foresight can be handy.”
“I had extra wood laid in a few weeks ago,” David defended himself.
“I guess you did at that,” she admitted with a smile. “If we have any problems, I’ll expect you to deal with them. So go ahead and enjoy the snow. I suppose you’ll be building a snowman.”
“As soon as school’s out today, I’ll take Timmy and Nicole out on the point and build a huge—” he measured with his hands “—snowman to overlook the valley. And furthermore,” he tweaked her chin, “I expect you to help us.”
“Then I’d better get dressed and wake the family.”
When she returned to the kitchen, David had laid his heavy coat aside. A pot of coffee was perking, four places were arranged at the table, juice was poured and he was making toast.
“Thought I’d invite myself for breakfast. With this storm, Hallie may not make it off the mountain and breakfast will be sparse at The Crossroads.”
“You know, you’re a right handy man to have around the house,” she said with an approving smile. “I don’t suppose my father has ever made a pot of coffee in his life, and I’m sure he’s never even poured out a bowl of cereal for himself.”
“But you’ve always had a housekeeper. My parents both worked outside the home, and after we kids were in our teens, it was everyone for himself for breakfast and lunch. Mom prepared a balanced evening meal when all of us sat down and ate together.”