Oh, Lord, I don’t want to be having this conversation. He muttered a silent prayer for wisdom and compassion. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you.”
“Oh, it’s fine, really. It wasn’t meant to be. So, are you dating anyone?” she asked.
“No…uh, not really.”
“Not really? So, what you’re saying is, you are. In a way.”
He supposed he should be honest. “No, I’m really not dating anyone.”
He heard her let out a slow, deliberate sigh. “Well, what do you know? You’re still unattached. What would you say to going out for coffee some night—as old friends, of course? No strings attached.”
No strings attached? Candace Peterson carried a ball of string everywhere she went. He could not afford to get tangled up in it again. “I don’t think—”
“Oh, come on, Jason. I’m harmless.”
As a snake, he wanted to say. “I’ve been pretty busy.”
“I learned to cook!” she announced, passing over his weak excuse. “And would you believe I’m enjoying it?”
“You—what?” He could not help the chuckle that came out. “Really?”
“I’ve taken some night classes, and they’re really fun. I know it’s hard to believe, but my domestic skills have greatly improved.”
“I should probably go to that class,” he joked.
“You should! We could go together. It’s on Tuesday nights.”
“I just joined a men’s Bible study on Tuesday nights.” He’d gone to only one session so far, but she didn’t need to know that.
“No problem. The class meets on Thursdays, too. You can pick which night is more convenient. I’m flexible. What do you say?”
“I—I’d have to think about it.”
“All right, that’s fair enough. Now, about that coffee…what are you doing tonight?”
“Tonight?” Lord, what am I doing tonight? “I’m—I haven’t—”
“Wonderful! What do you say I come by and pick you up around seven?”
“Seven? You’ll pick me up? That’s pretty far out of your way.”
“Oh, did I forget to mention I’ve switched condos? I live in Cadillac now, very close to the hospital. Gosh, I probably live about ten, fifteen minutes from you now. It’s great.”
“Candace? Um, we broke up, remember? I just don’t think it’s a good idea—”
“Don’t worry so much, Jason. It’s just coffee, for goodness’ sake—my treat. And we’d be getting together for old times’ sake, nothing more. Come on; it’ll be fun to see each other and just chat up a storm.”
It sounded innocent enough. “Well, I guess it couldn’t hurt, but just as friends.”
She laughed, and he thought he detected a hint of disappointment or maybe annoyance in her light chortle. But what could he do about it? He had no feelings for her beyond friendship, and even that was sort of stretching it. He didn’t want to build up her hopes.
“I’ve been going to Good Faith Community Church,” she said. “It’s downtown.”
He knew the church. It was one of those “feel good” kinds of churches, the type that didn’t challenge you beyond your comfort level or talk about the need for confession and repentance and welcomed every kind of lifestyle into their big, happy congregation, also embracing the philosophy that Jesus wasn’t necessarily the only route to God. “That’s—uh, good. Have you been reading your Bible?”
“Of course—every chance I get.” Somehow, he doubted that. “Okay, then; I’ll see you tonight, Jason. I’m excited. We’ll go to the Coffee Gallery, if that’s all right with you. They have light cuisine, if you happen to be hungry.”
“I’ve been there before. It’s a nice place.”
After they’d said their good-byes and hung up, Jason sat there staring at his phone for a full minute, wondering what had made him give in and agree to go out with his old flame. He didn’t even want to see her. “You dumb weakling!” he chided himself.
Lord, strike me down with a bad flu bug or something—anything to give me reason to cancel this unexpected…was it a date?
He growled with frustration and shoved his phone into his pocket, opting to forgo his cold coffee and toast in favor of beginning his much-needed bike ride immediately. He fumbled to fasten his helmet as he walked to the garage, peeved with himself for being unable to give Candace a firm no.
Brisk winds stung his face like a million pinpricks, and yet he pedaled faster, staring straight ahead, taking in huge gasps of bitter-cold air, which stung his lungs from front to back. Faster. “Lord, wake up Rachel—whatever it takes, wake her up. Open her eyes to Your love and mine. Give her the courage to step out in faith and believe we’re meant to be together.”
“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
The mental reminder from Matthew 6 gave him pause. He had been seeking God’s righteousness first, hadn’t he? He pedaled and pondered, pedaled and pondered.
“Lord, I do want to seek the life and plan You have for me. I know in my heart it’s the only way to find true peace and contentment.” More pedaling and pondering. “Have I been presuming to know Your will without truly seeking it? If I have, please forgive me. Sheesh!” he muttered into the chilly breezes. “Maybe I’m the one who needs a wake-up call!”
As much as he hated admitting that last part, he forced himself to think about it. With fresh insight, he realized he’d been putting his own desires ahead of God’s, praying only that God would awaken Rachel’s heart to the truth of his love. A hard, painful lump wedged itself deep in his throat. What if the Lord had never intended him to fall in love with Rachel? He tried to recall seeking God’s direction for his heart, but all he’d ever done was tell God how he felt. Oh, he was good at telling God things, but those seeking and listening aspects of prayer made him look like a big, fat failure.
Surrender.
The single word pierced him in the heart. “I do, Lord. I do surrender. I know that I’m nothing without You, and that if You want Rachel and me to be together, I must trust You alone to make it happen. On the other hand, if You don’t, then please forgive me for rushing ahead of You, declaring my love to her before she was ready to hear it, and insisting that You make her see it. Your timing is perfect, Lord. Mine?” He sniffed the cold air. “Just a bit under par.”
Tears moistened the corners of his eyes, but he decided to blame the wind and the fact that he wasn’t wearing sunglasses to ward off the bright glare.
At the merge point with West Hobart Street, he glanced over his shoulder but was blinded by the rising sun. So, when he entered the street at full speed, he didn’t see the car already in the lane. He heard the screeching brakes, though, and felt the tremendous blow his body took when the car rammed him from the side, sending the bike veering one way and making his body bounce off the hood of the car.
When he made contact with the hood and then slid off and hit the hard earth, unbelievable pain pummeled so many parts of his body at once, he couldn’t tell what hurt most. A car door slammed, voices started coming from various directions, someone shouted orders to call an ambulance, and someone else knelt at his side and draped a covering over him. His world started spinning and spiraling. And, just before he slipped into a sea of blackness, he had one last fleeting word for the Lord: “I asked for the flu, God, not this….”
***
“Okay, you two, hustle, hustle,” Rachel said, snagging both kids’ jackets from the hall closet and then approaching Meagan, who lounged in her beanbag chair “reading” Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. When Johnny saw her coming, he dropped his truck and set off down the hall, squealing a plea to play chase.
“Where are we going now?” Meagan asked, obviously put off by the interruption.
“The grocery store. Don’t worry; you may take your book along in the car.”
“Why do we always gotta go to the store?”
“We don’t ‘always gotta’ go, sn
uggle-puss, but the fact is, you kids eat like little horses, so I’m constantly running out of food.”
“If we had a daddy, he could stay home with us while you went to the store.”
In the midst of zipping Meagan’s coat, Rachel stilled her fingers and stared for all of five seconds at a tiny spot on Meagan’s coat. “That’s true,” she said, finally bringing the zipper to Meagan’s chin and tapping her nose. “But your daddy’s in heaven.”
“You could marry someone else, like Uncle Jay. Then we’d have a new daddy.”
Rachel’s heart took a strange leap. “Well, now, how in the world did you come up with that notion?”
“Esther McCormick’s mommy got dee-vorced, but then she married somebody else, and now Esther brags that she gots a new daddy. I was tryin’ to figure out who I’d want for a new daddy, and I couldn’t think of nobody else but Uncle Jay.”
“Well, that’s an interesting thought,” she answered in a noncommittal tone. It’d been three weeks since she’d last heard from Jason, and she’d been getting plain tired of missing him. She decided to call him tonight after putting the kids to bed. She was finally willing to admit that she had strong feelings for him, and the sooner she told him, the better off things would be. Lately, she’d felt like a pressure cooker about to blow its lid off.
Of course, anything could come of her confession. It might be that after three long weeks apart, Jason had reevaluated his heart, decided he didn’t love her after all—at least, not in a romantic sense—and had avoided calling her for that reason. Well, it didn’t matter. The time had come to bare her heart to him. After purging most of John’s clothes from her closet and packing up a number of his personal keepsakes to give to the children later, she felt she’d turned a page, maybe even finished a whole chapter! Time to move forward, she’d told herself.
Just then, Johnny burst back into the room, his impish eyes challenging her to a chase. She snatched up his parka. “Okay, you little monster, Mommy’s gonna get you.” He screamed with glee and took off, and the race to capture her prey and complete her mission was in full swing. This time, Meagan joined in the merriment.
Ten minutes later, Rachel was kneeling just inside the van’s backseat, getting her kids buckled into their car seats, when she heard a horn honk in the driveway. She stood up, wiped her brow, and looked out through the open garage to see her in-laws’ car slowing to a stop. An immediate sense of doom came over her, whether from the grave expressions on their faces or their unannounced afternoon visit, she didn’t know.
“Mom? Dad?” She approached their car as her father-in-law lowered his window, bearing a grim smile.
“What’s going on? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
Tom cast Donna a hurried glance, and then Donna leaned forward in order to see Rachel. “Something happened today, honey.”
“What?” She went weak in the knees, her stomach instantly tying itself into a hundred knots. It’s Jason. Oh, God, I know it’s Jason. Please, Lord, no. The tears came before she could head them off. “What’s going on?” Her voice quivered nearly out of control.
“Honey, calm down,” her father-in-law urged her. “Everything’s fine, really. Jason was just involved in an accident.”
She gasped, covered her gaping mouth, and fought for control, gripping the side of the car to keep from falling over. “What—? Is he—?”
“He’ll be all right, thank God,” Donna said, still leaning forward, her face tipped up to see into Rachel’s eyes. “We just came from the hospital. He was riding his bike this morning, and…well, you tell her, Tom.”
For the next few minutes, her father-in-law went on to explain how Jay had been riding his bike and collided with a car. The police had said that his helmet had prevented any major head injuries, although he did have some cracked ribs, several contusions, a fractured elbow, and enough bruises to play connect-the-dots.
More sobs erupted at the conclusion of Tom’s detailed account, forcing both in-laws to open their doors and climb out. At this point, Meagan started shouting from the car for attention, which precipitated John Jr.’s loud wails.
“Rachel, take a deep breath,” Donna instructed her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Tom went into the garage to see the children. “He’s not dead. He’s not dead,” Rachel repeated several times, breathless.
“No, no, honey, he’ll be fine,” Donna assured her, rubbing her arm.
Rachel heaved several breaths before letting out a long, shaky sigh, then put her hand to her throat. New tears pushed past her eyelids. “I couldn’t take it, you know, if something happened to Jay. I just—couldn’t take it.”
Donna’s face went pale. “Nor could we, honey. Thank God, we’re not going down that path. Don’t even think such things.”
She took several more calming breaths. “Is he still in the hospital?”
“Yes, but the doctors are confident he’ll go home tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Will he be able to get around okay?”
“He seems to think so,” Tom spoke from the van. The children had quieted, especially with their grand-
father standing nearby, except now they wanted to get free. “Mother tried to talk him into coming to our place for a few days, but he’ll have none of that, stubborn kid. When he makes up his mind about something, there’s no changing it.”
“Well, I wonder where that comes from, Tom,” Donna said with a smirk.
“Why didn’t you call me this morning?” Rachel asked, passing over her in-laws’ gentle sarcasm.
“Dad saw no point in upsetting you until we had concrete details. I’ll admit, it was a nerve-racking trip to Cadillac. When that call came in from the hospital—oh, my!” Donna’s eyes shone bright, revealing her own raw, jagged emotions. Instinctively, the role of comforter reversed as Rachel wrapped her arms around her. “We didn’t want to tell you on the phone, so that’s why we came straight here from the hospital,” she added.
Wiping her eyes, Rachel pulled her shoulders back and looked at her van. “I’ll take care of him,” she announced.
“What?” Donna asked. “But—how do you—?”
“I’ll have to make arrangements for the kids. I’ll leave in the morning and come back tomorrow night. Maybe I’ll do that for a few days, depending on how quickly he regains his independence. But he’ll need someone to cook and clean for him, at least for a while.”
Donna brightened. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, so it’s no problem for me to take care of the kids, unless you want to take them with you.”
“I’d get nothing done with them scampering all over the place.”
“True. Well, between your mom and me, tomorrow’s covered. As for next week, with Arlene working and Tanna in school, I’m your best candidate.”
“And I can stop by after finishing my postal route,” Tom chimed in from the garage.
“Then it’s settled,” Rachel said.
“We told him we’d take him to his condo tomorrow and help him get situated,” Tom said.
“Please, let me—I mean, if you don’t mind,” Rachel blurted out. “I’d like to surprise him.”
Donna turned her head to look at Tom, and they exchanged flickering smiles. “We sort of thought you might want to do this,” Donna said, looking back at Rachel. “Frankly, it puts my mind at ease knowing he won’t be fending for himself. He’s pretty battered up.”
Fresh resolve flowed through Rachel’s veins, making her feel exhilarated and almost buoyant. It wasn’t the way she’d pictured things—she nursing the man she loved back to health, he having to submit to her orders. And there would be orders. Oh, how she relished the idea of telling him what to do. An unexpected giggle rippled from her chest.
“Now, what’s so funny?” Donna asked her, smiling.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” She gave her watch a hurried glance. “Goodness, I’d better get to the grocery store before the sun goes down. Please call me tomorrow when you receive word that Jay’s ready to be rel
eased, and I’ll go straight to the hospital.”
Chapter 28
It’s about time, Jason thought when the morning sun burst through the sterile hospital blinds. Nights spent in the hospital were long and loud, with carts banging, people talking, and nurses coming in at all hours to check blood pressure and temperature and hand out more pain pills. He appreciated the pills, but the rest was a nuisance. He needed to get out of here, the sooner the better.
A tiny rap at the door had him turning his head. He expected to see his breakfast, not his foreman. He pushed himself up with effort. “Todd, come in.”
“Wow! Look at you, man. You look like…well, like you got run over by a truck.”
“Very funny.”
Todd stepped inside, removed his hat, and, standing at the foot of the bed, threaded four fingers through his reddish-brown hair. “How’re you doing? Me and a couple of the guys stopped by yesterday, but you were sleeping. We talked to your parents for a few minutes, and then your pastor stopped by.”
“Yeah, I heard that. Thanks for coming by. I’ll be out of here in no time.”
“Is that right?”
“This morning, actually. I’m fine.”
“Uh-huh.” Todd squinted skeptically and scratched his temple, looking him over. “You’re a mess, if you ask me.”
“Well, I’m not asking you,” Jason groused. Showing his true colors was something he felt comfortable doing with Todd. He hated the inconvenience of pain, and he was feeling plenty of it right now. In fact, he hadn’t known it was possible to hurt in so many places at one time.
He relived the bits and pieces of what he could recall from yesterday morning but found most of it sketchy. His last recollection was of the biting chill in the air and yet the piercingly bright sunlight. He still couldn’t believe he’d shot directly into the lane and been rammed by a vehicle. The cops said the driver ought to have been more vigilant, but he blamed his own carelessness. He shifted his position gingerly, feeling his bruised, cracked ribs with every breath. The nurses had wrapped a burdensome bandage around his torso, supposedly to secure the rib cage, but he could have sworn it made the pain worse. The first thing on the agenda when he got home would be to loosen the darn thing.
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