by Delia Latham
Only God truly forgave and then forgot the sin. Man might forgive, but forgetting seemed to be another matter entirely.
Now she fidgeted beneath David’s intense observation, wondering what he was thinking as his gaze traveled from her to Zoe, who preened and prissed playfully, and back to Pia again.
The men spoke at the same time. “Their eyes.”
“What?” Puzzled, she looked at Zoe, who stared back at her.
“They’re very much alike.” David narrowed his own deadly peepers and tilted his head. “It’s uncanny.”
Gabe raised a brow. “He’s right, sis. The two of you could be sisters.”
Once again, she turned to look at Zoe. Now that the strange likeness had been pointed out, it was disturbingly obvious. Peering into the younger girl’s eyes was like seeing her own in a mirror.
Zoe laughed, delighted with the discovery. She raised one finger and nodded like a precocious child. “That settles it. The eyes are the windows to the soul.” Rising from her chair, she touched Pia’s shoulder with an exaggerated flourish and curtsied dramatically, while the others grinned at her antics. “I hereby officially dub thee my soul sister, Pia Peretti.”
Pia feigned a regal nod and patted Zoe’s head. “I am honored, oh small one.”
“All right, everyone, let’s eat!” Mrs. Mallory’s voice broke into their conversation. “Andy says it’s ready, and it smells mighty fine.”
They all turned toward the grill where the landlord stood with a grin on his lined face. “Well, it’s done and pipin’ hot. David let me take over a minute ago so I could claim some credit if these ribs are as good as he says they’ll be. Not bein’ the grill master today, I can’t say how ‘fine’ they are, but we can hope.” He nodded in David’s direction. “You wanna ask the blessin’?”
The next few moments were filled with chatter and laughter as everyone filled their plates. Pia heaped hers with meat, baked beans, a dollop of fluffy potato salad, and a slab of bread then drifted back to the purple-shaded table.
Mrs. Mallory slid in beside her, a smile lighting her blue eyes. “Everything looks so good.”
Pia grinned. “Including you, Mrs. Mallory.”
“Thank you, Pia, but—won’t you please call me Viv?” The older woman’s brows dipped downward. “How many times must I ask you, dear? Is there a magic number after which you’ll agree?”
Susanna and Zoe laughed as they joined them. Susanna’s plate rivaled Pia’s own ample fare, but Zoe’s held mostly fruit and salad.
“All right, then.” Pia gave the older woman’s arm a gentle squeeze. “Viv it is.”
“Well, it’s about time.” Viv rolled her eyes as she buttered her bread and addressed the newcomers. “It’s taken me a year to make this happen. There must be something special about today.”
“It’s the angels,” Zoe blurted, then froze as the other women turned startled stares her way.
Pia giggled through a mouthful of potato salad. She washed it down with a drink then shook her head. “Do you mean Mr. Hart’s angels?”
“Well, yes, but…mine are here, too. So are yours. Don’t you feel them?”
Pia couldn’t think of a response. Susanna bit her lip and toyed with her food.
Viv grinned and speared a tomato on her fork. “I think you shocked our friends, my dear.” She shrugged. “Including me. Zoe, honey, are you talking about angels, like in the Bible? Literally?”
Zoe hiked one brow and nodded. She popped a grape into her mouth and chewed it while she studied all of them. Finally she sighed, and her gaze drifted toward Andrew Hart. “Sometimes I forget that not everyone sees them.”
Remembering the conversation she and David had overheard between his uncle and some unseen companion, Pia followed her friend’s gaze. The landlord stood with his nephew and Gabe, a dripping rib gripped in one hand. Both younger men wore broad grins. Old Hart could be quite entertaining.
She opened her mouth to tell Zoe she whole-heartedly believed in angels—sometimes even felt their presence, though she couldn’t see them—but an ear-splitting crash interrupted the conversation. Susanna screamed. Viv gasped and clasped both hands to her heart.
The landlord picked up the plate he’d dropped and tossed it in the trash. “Those two-bedroom units started goin’ up today. That was just the first of what’ll be a whole lot o’ noise. Someone must’a dropped a sheet of plywood or something.” He cocked his head for a minute. Pia saw his eyes fix on a point beyond David’s shoulder. Finally he nodded. “Nobody’s hurt.”
Gabe had started around the corner. He halted at Hart’s words and turned. “How do you know that? Shouldn’t we go check it out?”
Hart shrugged. “Suit yourself, son. I know you got those cop instincts to deal with. But I’m tellin’ ya, everythin’s OK out there.”
The younger man hesitated, but finally joined David, who stood calmly refilling his plate.
Viv picked up their previous conversation as if there’d been no interruption. “Zoe, honey, Andy hasn’t actually said so, but I think you and he might have that angel thing in common. That man is not a lunatic like some people think.” She used her napkin to wipe daintily at her lips. “I’ve listened to him when he doesn’t know I hear, and now that you’ve mentioned angels…well, I think that just might be what’s going on.” She squinted across the lawn, studying Hart.
The old bachelor must have felt her gaze, because he winked and grinned. Surprised, she shot a look at Viv. The woman’s round cheeks grew rosy, but a tiny smile tugged at her lips.
Pia swallowed a chuckle. Well, well, well. Thinks of his old chum’s widow as a friend, does he?
“Hey, where are Kaci and Ryne?” Rising from her seat, Pia glanced toward Kaci’s unit.
“I think they’re working at the school. Something about a Valentine’s Day dance,” Zoe said. “And Zack Manning is, uhm…not feeling well today.” She laid her fork aside and guzzled her soda while a faint wash of color flooded her cheeks.
Pia blinked. So, even her little hippie “soul sister” had been bitten by the Heart’s Haven love bug. David’s story on that first day she met him…maybe he hadn’t been spinning a tall tale, after all.
Ridiculous. Just stop it.
She carried her plate to a nearby trash can then returned to the table for the gift bag she’d slid underneath. “Well, ladies, I’ve got a couple deliveries to make, and I’m late already.” She grinned at Zoe. “Hey, soul sister, would you mind taking my casserole dish home with you? I’ll pick it up later.”
9
Pia’s departure seemed to be the cue for everyone to call it a day. Within a half hour, David turned from cleaning the grill to find himself alone with his uncle and Mrs. Mallory.
“That was great, Uncle Andy. I enjoyed it.”
“Me too, but I always have a good time at these barbecues.” The older man’s gruff voice lowered. “We need to talk, David. Got a minute?”
He shrugged. “Sure. We can go to my place, if you’d like.”
His uncle turned to wave at Viv and raised his voice. “I’m going with David for a little while, Vivvy. I’ll be back to help clean up.”
“I’ve got this. Don’t worry about it.” Mrs. Mallory picked up a napkin off the ground and waved it at them, as though shooing them off. “Not much to do after everyone takes their dishes away.”
“Well, come on, boy.” Uncle Andy strode off toward the cottage David now called home. Once there, he pushed open the door and urged David inside. “Now, we got some talkin’ to do.” One long finger pointed toward the worn recliner David should have replaced a year or more ago. “Sit.”
David plopped down on the chair, wondering what was rattling around in that old noggin.
His uncle pulled a dining chair close. He lowered his lanky frame onto it, linked his fingers and hung them between his bony knees, then leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. David squirmed beneath that direct stare, feeling the probing gaze right down to the center of his so
ul.
“I thought you’d handle Pia’s situation a whole lot better’n you have, David.” When David’s head snapped up in response to her name, his uncle gave a sharp shake of his head, and his white hair—still thick and unruly—bounced around like twigs in a gale. “What? You think I don’t know you’re sweet on her?”
“Uncle Andy!”
“Oh, hush, boy. You didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in a fire pit once you walked through that gate out front. But you sure blew it when she opened up her heart to you. Just couldn’t bring yourself to tell her the past she’s so ashamed of wasn’t important to you, could you?”
David’s gut clenched. He had blown it.
Pia responded to the message he’d preached by telling him things about herself that couldn’t have been easy to reveal. And he’d listened. But he hadn’t offered any words of counsel, not as a pastor, and not as a man. He’d been petrified…not only by her past, but also by his own.
Rayanne Massey’s face haunted his dreams at night. His encounter with her had stolen his confidence and his ability to offer sound counsel to any woman, ever again.
The poor girl came to him an emotional mess. Weeping, depressed…suicidal. He’d felt all those things in her, known she needed more help than he could offer. Still, he’d counseled her from his heart and soul then begged her to get professional psychological assistance.
It hadn’t been enough. Mere hours after she left his office, Rayanne took her own life.
Bile rose in David’s throat. He couldn’t counsel Pia. He’d already proven he didn’t have what it took.
He hadn’t told his uncle why he left Dallas and accepted the local position. Only God knew that he had come here on a desperate odyssey of faith, trying to decide whether he’d missed his calling.
Surely a real minister…a called minister…would have been able to save Rayanne. But David hadn’t.
He huffed out a breath and met the older man’s direct gaze with a defiant one. “Look, if you have something to say, just say it. Your angel pals might get it when you talk in circles, but I don’t.”
Uncle Andy fixed his gaze just over David’s head and cocked his own, as if listening. Finally, he nodded, and his piercing blue eyes pinned David’s. “All right, boy. You want plain talk, then plain talk it is.” He brushed a hand gently over the cover of the worn Bible resting on a table next to the recliner, then picked it up and laid it on David’s lap. “The gift and callin’ of God are without repentance.”
David’s throat closed and he looked down, fixing a frozen gaze on his clenched fists. His uncle knew. Somehow he knew how badly David had failed in Dallas.
“I don’t know what you think you did wrong back there in the big city, son, but I do know this.” A gnarled hand appeared and rested atop David’s. “All you can do is deliver the messages God gives you. Once His words leave your lips and fall on the ears of those He means ‘em for, it’s out o’ your hands—whatever the situation. God gives each of us—man, woman, boy, and girl—the choice to do right or do wrong…to obey or disobey. To accept His grace, or toss it to the winds and follow our own mistaken paths.” He tapped a crooked finger on David’s wrist, and his gravelly voice gentled, as though he spoke to a hurt child. “Our Father will let us do that, David, even if that path leads to our own destruction. He’s not a God who forces His will on a single soul.”
David’s throat closed around a huge knot, but he raised his head to look at his uncle, who suddenly seemed as lucid and sane as any man he’d ever known. His vivid blue eyes held vast wisdom and understanding. “Uncle Andy, I—I failed. I couldn’t make her see—”
“No.” Andrew held up a hand and shook his head. “You didn’t fail, son. You delivered the message, and she refused to hear it. It’s not in your power to make a person accept God’s wisdom.” Sliding from his chair, he knelt and pulled David’s unresisting form into his arms, just as he’d done when, as a child, his nephew needed comfort and assurance. “We have the God-given freedom to make our own choices—even if they lead to disaster.” A loving hand cupped the back of David’s head, and his uncle’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Or to death.”
All the pain he’d been holding inside burst forth in a sob that scraped his throat raw, and David collapsed in his uncle’s arms. Cleansing tears flowed from his eyes and soaked the fabric across the older man’s shoulder. Deep inside his heart, a dam cracked and crumbled, releasing the pent-up pain and doubt so he could give it back to God.
A few minutes later, he excused himself long enough to blow his nose and splash cold water on his face. Then he settled in across from his uncle at the table and pulled in a breath that felt deeper and cleaner than any he’d drawn in months.
“Uncle Andy…about Pia.” He cleared his throat and looked up to find the older man wearing a teasing grin.
“You know what needs to be done, son. Just do it.”
The old man crossed to the front door and stood for a moment with his twisted fingers curled around the knob. “I’m going back out to help, although if I know Vivvy, it’s all done by now.” He pushed the door open, and David noticed the last streaks of a dying sunset over his uncle’s shoulder. They’d been inside longer than he realized. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that little cottage across the way couldn’t use a bit o’ comp’ny.”
The door closed and David stared at it for a full minute before shaking his head and talking into the empty air. “Was that Uncle Andy talking or one of those angels of his?”
He let himself out and strolled towards the “little cottage across the way.”
10
Pia decided to walk the perimeter of the complex and a short ways along the chattering brook that ran through the property. She needed some time alone with her thoughts.
David’s lack of reaction to her outburst on Sunday had left her feeling uncertain of where she stood—with God, and with him. His sermon had offered her a shining hope of total forgiveness that had not been duplicated in his response—or lack of response—to her confession.
“God, was my understanding of that sermon completely off? Maybe it really isn’t possible to be completely forgiven.”
Her eyes burned, and she fought back the tears that wanted to fall.
But…no. God had forgiven her. She had to believe that. Whether David could do so might be another story completely. Her heart bled with a depth of loss she had not anticipated.
She made her way back toward the complex in the dusky fall of night, ready to distribute her gifts.
Each of the six keys was tucked into a separate, miniature gift bag. Each bright red bag was tied together at the top with a white ribbon. She reached in and pulled one out for Gabe and one for Ryne, praying God’s blessing on each man as she did so. The warrior tie tack she slid into David’s box, and a tear slid down her cheek before she could blink it away.
She reached into the carry-all for one more gift bag, intending to put it in Zack Manning’s box, but the tiny object would not be removed. Puzzled, she tried to see into the dark interior of the tote. Had she somehow spilled a drop of glue, which adhered the little item to the bottom? Well, there were other bags and other keys.
But she couldn’t lift any of the bags out, and now she felt a fluttery breeze around her. So that’s the way the wind’s blowing. She turned away, a slight smile tugging at her lips despite the chaos in her soul.
Apparently God had other plans for Zack. She could wait.
With her tote bag over her arm, she crossed the center court to her own apartment and let herself inside, but soon discovered she was still wound up, with nothing to do. Drifting into her bedroom, she perched on the foot of the bed. No point in crawling between the sheets, only to stare into the dark till all hours…again. Sleep had pretty much eluded her since Sunday.
She walked to the window and peered across the center court. Lights shone from a couple of windows in Kaci’s unit, so maybe the school teacher wouldn’t be overly upset at having a visitor. Pia w
ould give her the necklace she’d been saving for her along with a quick hug then come on back home.
And maybe God would grant her the gift of a good night’s rest when she finally crawled into bed.
****
As David passed the mailboxes, he noticed his own stood slightly open. That was odd, because he distinctly remembered closing it firmly when he removed his mail earlier in the day. With the weather so unpredictable, he hadn’t wanted to risk any rain getting inside.
He reached out to close it then paused and peeked into the dark interior.
“Hmm.... Where did you come from?” he murmured, pulling out a small red gift bag.
David examined the little item but found no hint as to its origin. He looked around. Who could have left it?
But no one appeared to be in the vicinity, and David’s curiosity was well aroused. Inside the little bag, he discovered a tiny gold box. He pulled it out and ran his fingers over the embossed logo. JK. Jewels for the Kingdom.
Pia had left something for him.
Smiling, he removed the lid, but sobered as he stared down at the tiny object inside. This must be the day God had chosen to whomp him over the head with truth, from every direction imaginable.
He stood a long time with his head bowed. Finally, he tucked the tie tack back into the bag, returned it to his mail bin and gave the door a firm shove to make sure it closed. He’d pick up his warrior tie tack on the way back home, and wear it on Sunday—maybe every Sunday for a long time, just to keep him reminded of his calling.
Right now, he needed to see Pia.
He hurried to her unit and knocked, but no one answered. Disappointed, he retraced his steps, and turned to latch the gate as he left.
“David?”
Whirling at the sound of her voice, he was relieved to see that, save for a deeper sadness in her eyes, Pia looked none the worse for his abominable lack of the counsel she had needed.