What was she going to do now?
Dinah sagged against the kitchen door jamb and tried to get her foggy brain to work.
“I started a pot of coffee.” Matthew nodded toward the pot. “It isn’t as good as yours, but then, your tea isn’t as good as mine.” His smile held all the satisfaction of a man who had put in a hard day’s work and was proud of it.
Wordlessly she got a mug from the cupboard, put in some milk, and poured coffee. While she sank into a chair at the kitchen table, Tamsen finished the bottle and Matthew lifted her to his shoulder, patting her back.
Dinah hooked a tea towel from the oven door with two fingers. “Don’t forget this.”
“The towel is probably in better shape than my shirt.” He repositioned the baby on his shoulder and continued to pat her.
She had planned to offer him some of her father’s clothes, poor man. Right, and she’d planned to kick him off the ranch today, too. Which was it going to be? She buried her nose in the coffee mug and hoped the caffeine would clear her brain. Hot and strong, softened with milk, it was actually pretty good. Not bad for an Englishman.
There she was, thinking good thoughts about him again.
If the good ones outweigh the bad ones, maybe you should rethink this altogether.
As if he’d read her mind, Matthew said, “I’m sorry I upset you last night. I made personal remarks and offended you, and I would like to apologize.”
He’d said she was beautiful. That was offensive, all right. To a crazy person. A normal woman would have smiled and accepted it gracefully. Unfortunately, Dinah didn’t have the knack. Never had. Not that compliments came her way all that often. But still . . .
“It’s all right,” she said at last, awkwardly, her voice muffled in the depths of the coffee cup. The decisive tones of a woman about to give an employee his walking papers. Sure.
“It isn’t all right. I caused you to question your beliefs, with the presumption that mine were somehow better.”
Is that what he thought he’d done? “It wasn’t that.”
“What was it, then?”
She’d made such a fool of herself last night he couldn’t think much less of her if she went ahead and told him. “It all goes back to Phinehas.”
She’d lost him already. “Phinehas?” he repeated.
“He—he would tell me I was beautiful. For years, you know, before he . . . before. That I was his favorite among the favored families, that my spirit made me lovely in his eyes. It took a long time to realize what he was doing.”
Matthew gazed at her a moment, his eyes sad. “He was preparing the soil?”
She nodded, thankful there were some things she didn’t have to say out loud. “And I fell for it, like a total idiot.”
“Dinah, what was it like for you, growing up?”
A breath of cool relief passed over her at the swerve in subject. “I hated being a kid, but it was nothing to being a teenager. You can’t imagine how awful it is to be an Elect girl at Hamilton High School.”
“The black?”
“The black clothes, the hair long enough to wash the feet of Jesus, the notes we have to give the Phys. Ed. teacher explaining why we can’t wear shorts, doing our homework in a stuffy classroom while everyone else is out at the track. Even swimming in the river is impossible.”
“Why?”
She thought back to past summers—the heat, the discomfort, the frustrated longing to be normal. “Bathing suits are immodest, so we wear T-shirts and our oldest skirt, pinned between our legs.”
“To swim?” Tamsen hiccuped and swiveled her head to look up at him as his voice rose.
“Eventually you give it up because it just isn’t worth looking that silly.”
“I can see that,” he agreed. “But what was it like here at home?”
How did one describe it? “My father believed in the structure. Every jot, every tittle of the law was important to him, and he made sure it was important to us, too.”
“Moses’s law?”
“No. God’s law. The Elect’s law.”
“Can I see it? I’d like to become better acquainted with your doctrine.”
“Oh, it isn’t written down anywhere.” She waved a hand. “It’s something you learn by osmosis, listening to Melchizedek and Phinehas preach, watching the others, watching your parents.” She paused, remembering. “Getting smacked when you don’t wear your sleeves long enough or you don’t put your hair up neatly enough. When you wiggle or get bored in Gathering, which apparently I used to do a lot.” She shrugged. “But all of that trains you to have the right example, and that can lead others to the way where they can find salvation.”
“To Christ, you mean.”
She nodded, and took another sip of coffee.
His brows were creased in a puzzled frown. “But how does how you look lead people to Christ?”
“The outside reflects what’s on the inside. And what’s inside brings people to want that for themselves.”
“It seems to me, from what you’ve described, what’s on the inside is a lot of unhappiness and failure to measure up to the jots and tittles.”
Dinah realized that, in her selfishness, she’d failed to explain this in a godly way so that he’d understand. “It—it’s good for us to make sacrifices. It pleases God when we give up things and don’t conform with the world. That’s how we work out our salvation.”
The baby spit up on the tea towel at last. Matthew cleaned her up and then held her in his lap, where she stared at Dinah, her little mouth open.
“Dinah,” he said quietly, “have you ever heard of grace?”
That was easy. “Of course.”
“How would you define it?”
She thought of the preaching at Summer Gathering, of the hot, airless tent and the hundreds of people packed inside listening to the word of God. Last summer there had been a lot about grace, prompting follow-up sermons about how much the people of God needed it in an unholy world.
“Grace is like grease,” she explained. “It’s what moves between the people of God so that they live in harmony with one another. The way engine parts all work together.” He was looking a little doubtful. Had she got the answer wrong? “Why, how would you define it?”
“I believe that grace is what covers us because of the sacrifice of Jesus,” he said quietly. “It’s what makes it so that we don’t have to work our way to heaven. He paid the price for us, and now his grace makes us worthy.”
“Work our way to heaven?” She latched onto something she recognized, pleased that he could understand. “Yes, he paid the price for us, and now his death is an example of how we can die to ourselves.”
Why was he shaking his head?
“That’s still work. Salvation isn’t performance based, like a giant corporation where you work your way to the top. Jesus paid the price once for all of us, and now we live free under grace.”
That couldn’t be right. If that were the case, there would be no point in wearing black, no point in long hair, no point in her whole miserable childhood and teenage years.
No point in all that sacrifice.
No point in doing what she had done with Phinehas.
No point in her life at all.
“Worldly churches use that as an excuse,” she said finally, reeling back from the precipice and taking refuge in truths she’d been taught since birth. “If you believe that, you can go do what you like and grace covers you. Like—like a big old insurance policy.”
Matthew smiled. “But isn’t that where being born again comes in? The new woman born in Christ doesn’t behave that way, does she?”
“No. She does what pleases God.”
“Yes, but does that include all these things that you call the structure, or does it mean love in its fullest sense?”
“You can’t put a finger on love.” She glanced at the baby in his lap. He was playing a modified version of patty-cake and instead of screaming, Tamsen seemed to be enjoying it.
“Love has to be concrete, like changing diapers and feeding. Love is a service.”
“It can be,” Matthew allowed. “But sometimes the service becomes more important than what prompts it. Like changing diapers on a baby because they’re dirty, not because you love her and want her to be comfortable. Service like that gets between us and our Father. We’re perfectly capable of performing the service without any love at all, as Phinehas can probably tell us.”
“He would never say such a thing.”
“I can see it, though.”
She huffed a breath of laughter. “Don’t ever let him know. If you were Elect, you’d be Silenced in a second for criticizing him.”
“He isn’t perfect.”
“No, but the grace of God covers him. You said so yourself.”
“I believe it does, but I don’t think that man is walking in newness of life. If he were, he couldn’t do the things he does. He couldn’t abuse you.”
Dinah was silent, watching the baby’s tiny fingers in Matthew’s hands. He was becoming more sure of himself with the baby every second. And with other things.
“You told me not long ago that God was in on it with him,” Matthew went on after a moment. “I believe that Phinehas’s worst crime is in distorting the way you see God.”
“You have no idea what the worst is. Just like I have no idea what God is.” The words fell out of her mouth before she had time to stop them. Then a hot flush of embarrassment washed into her cheeks.
“That’s not surprising,” he said gently.
“Oh, and I suppose you do?”
“You’re right. I have no idea what the worst can be. But the Father I love gives me strength and hope and unexpected gifts along the way.”
“Right, like your car breaking down.” Acid etched her tone. “And those guys who stole your wallet. Those were really unexpected gifts.”
“I was thinking more of you,” he said. “And little Schatzi, of whom I’m becoming quite fond. And of course our little voice here, howling in the wilderness.” He smiled down at Tamsen, and the baby smiled back. “Dinah! Did you see that?”
She had. “Will she do it again?”
Matthew made a big, goofy face and the baby cackled in delight. “You see?” he demanded, his face all lit up in just the same way. “Unexpected gifts.”
Clearly, Dinah thought, she and Matthew believed in completely different Gods. The problem was she had no idea which one was real and which the distorted fantasy.
Chapter 13
AFTER REWARDING THEIR labors with a smile, Tamsen decided to be difficult for the rest of the morning. The dry diaper wasn’t right, Dinah’s attempts at entertainment weren’t right, and going down for a nap was out of the question. Finally Matthew did what any reasonable man would do—he got on the Internet to look for solutions.
“It says that at four months we might try solid foods,” he reported after a trip out to the barn. “We can buy those here, can’t we?”
“Hamilton Falls isn’t that small.” Dinah raised her voice over the sound of Tamsen’s fussing, which didn’t help the situation. “It’s pretty nice outside. Why don’t I take her out while you go get baby food? You never know. It might work.”
Matthew took the truck, and Dinah wrapped Tamsen in the stained but clean aqua blanket and took her out into the front yard. March had gone out like a lamb, and the early April sunshine held the promise of relief from the cold and new life springing up from the unfriendly soil. The Traynell property sloped away to the road, and on the other side of it, down to the river in a gentle roll of grass and scrub pines and weeds.
Half a dozen chickens, led by Schatzi, had found some dry ground close to the house and were busy giving themselves dust baths. Tamsen, who had fallen silent the minute Dinah had stepped out on the porch, made a sound Dinah translated as interest in what the birds were doing. She sat on a stump and told the baby all the birds’ names and why dirt was flying in every direction as each bird happily hollowed out its bath and sent swathes of dust over its back.
When she heard a car’s engine a few minutes later, she couldn’t believe Matthew had gone to town and back so fast. Maybe he’d forgotten something.
She swiveled on the stump and saw Claire Montoya climb out of her discreet, compact sedan.
Claire?
But Claire had never come out to the ranch for anything other than a young people’s meeting or Gathering. They’d bunk together at Summer Gathering, maybe, or share a booth at the café if they both happened to get the same lunch hour. But there their commonality ended. Claire Montoya had normal parents who lived normal lives. Dinah . . . well, Dinah put on an act that looked reasonably normal and kept her mouth shut.
Claire picked her way across the wet grass in her neat black pumps. Her black suit was wool crepe and cut so nicely she probably hadn’t made it, but had ordered it from Nordstrom or Bloomingdale’s. She worked at the bank—in fact had taken the position Dinah had had to give up when Dad got so sick he couldn’t run the ranch. Her blouse was black but made of something like satin, a sensuous, worldly fabric that wouldn’t escape the old ladies’ hawk eyes.
From her expression, she’d already heard about the baby’s arrival. Was she coming to check out the rumor before she spread it any further? Dinah supposed she should be grateful. The Elect grapevine was highly efficient, but not too picky about accuracy.
“Hi, Dinah.” Claire greeted her with a smile, but her fascinated gaze was locked on the baby.
“Hi. What brings you out this way?”
“Is this your new niece? Linda Bell told me you were looking after her.”
Which pretty much answered the question.
“Her name is Tamsen. It’s Cornish for ‘a person who is free.’” So said Matthew, anyway, who could reasonably be expected to know, since he had been born and raised in Cornwall. She wondered if Tamara had known that when she’d named her. Free.
Claire tickled the baby’s fingers. “I never heard it before. It’s unusual. But then, from what I hear, just about everything about her is unusual.”
Dinah attempted to be civil. “So did you come to find out what her name was, or is there something else I can do for you?”
Claire seemed to give herself a mental shake. “I’ve been hearing the strangest things and thought I’d come out and have a Visit.”
A Visit. Oh, dear. Not a small-v visit like most of the world enjoyed. A capital-V Visit meant that someone thought you needed encouragement or help. That maybe your service was slipping a bit. Of course, sometimes it was simply an offer of a shoulder to cry on, though she and Claire weren’t really on those terms.
In any case, she didn’t need Visits from anybody.
“Are you busy?” Claire asked after a moment.
“I’m trying to get Tamsen to settle down enough to have a nap. For some reason nothing is making her happy today.”
“Is she hungry?”
“No.”
“Dry? Comfortable?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing is poking or hurting her? No gas?”
“She uses disposables and she burped after her second breakfast.”
Claire nodded briskly. “Sometimes you have to just let them cry. It’s good for them. Builds their lungs.”
Dinah eyed her. “You haven’t heard Tamsen cry. I’d have to move out and go in the barn.”
This seemed to throw the switch on Claire’s train of thought. “Is it true you hired a vagrant and he sleeps out there?”
Was she always this abrupt and nosy?
“I hired a former university professor and he’s living in the hired man’s suite.”
“I heard he was a homeless man.”
“Well, you might want to check your facts. He isn’t.” Not now. But Dinah wasn’t going to go into details. Matthew’s life was his own business, not fodder for the Elect women to chew on.
“But Dinah, isn’t it dangerous?”
“What? Matthew? Of course not.”
“Well, look at you.” Claire waved an arm at the grass and the river. “All alone out here, now that your mom’s gone to Pitchford. Anything could happen.”
Anything could and already had happened. Matthew could only improve the picture.
“I’m not worried,” she said mildly. “He’s a very nice man. He’s gone to get baby food for Tamsen, in case you were wondering. You’ll probably pass him on the highway on your way back.”
That was about as pointed as she could bring herself to be, but Claire didn’t take the hint.
“Maybe he’s not a physical danger, but what about, well, your reputation?”
Dinah blinked at her, and waited.
Claire had the grace to look a little uncomfortable. “You know. All alone out here with—with him. A worldly man, nice or not, is still a worldly man.”
“Claire, he’s an employee. We’ve had hired men off and on for years.” Dinah settled the baby more comfortably in her lap. “Why does it matter to you?” she asked finally. “We’ve never really been the best of friends. My behavior has never worried you before.”
“You never gave anyone anything to worry about before.” Claire’s voice held something Dinah couldn’t identify. Her lashes veiled her green eyes, and her hair—which curled around her forehead and temples in a way that Dinah could only envy—was pulled back in a heavy chignon at the nape of her neck. On Dinah this would have been fatally ugly. Claire could have been a nymph in a Greek frieze.
“I’m not giving anyone anything to worry about now,” she said quietly. “I’m in a weird situation and I’m making the best of it.”
“I believe you.” The words seemed forced out of her, and Dinah frowned. “But people are talking.”
“What, about me and the hired man? Good grief, Claire, I just lost my dad, my mom had a stroke, my sister dumped her baby on me, and I have a ranch to run. I don’t have time to—to have an affair, if that’s what people are thinking.”
To her amazement, Claire lifted her head and grinned—a real grin, not the fake smile that had been holding up the corners of her mouth until now.
Pocketful of Pearls Page 14