by Heaton, Lisa
Since early in her marriage with John, Chelsea hadn’t traveled much, and she hadn’t really missed it. They settled into a quite eventless routine, mostly so they could be there for Lucy. During his sickness, they traveled more but only to visit doctors and seek second and third and fourth opinions. After a while, realizing that there were no other alternatives other than to wait for a heart transplant, they stopped traveling again. Looking back, it felt more like a horrendous movie she had watched than a life she experienced. Everything during those months seemed like a foggy nightmare. Now though, with Tuck beside her, Chelsea felt as if life were really just beginning.
Tuck could hardly believe he was awake. His new life seemed more like a fantastic dream than it did reality. There they were, jetting off to the south of France, about to spend a week in a castle, complete with servants, and just a week before he was trying to keep from losing everything.
Since learning of the money John had left him, Tuck never once felt any moral dilemma over taking it. He kept recalling how John felt he owed him that and much more. If John’s viewpoint was accurate, then absolutely, he did owe him millions and much more. Tuck went to convince John to come for Chelsea because Tuck truly loved her. Because of that, not only had he lost years with her, but he had also given up a part of her completely. If John had never come, Chelsea would have grieved over him but never to the extent that she did as his wife. Their union made things different. Again, looking at life from John’s perspective, John was given everything when given a life with Chelsea, much more than his money was worth. So if John wanted to thank him, Tuck would take the money and use it well. However, Tuck believed that deep down, John’s motives were much more directed toward Chelsea’s ultimate welfare than about paying any actual debt. John was wise enough to predict how Tuck would feel about using Chelsea’s money, which would lead to contention, causing Chelsea harm in the long run. Since John’s first priority was always Chelsea, he was supposing that if he gave Tuck the money directly, then Tuck might see things in a different light and provide for Chelsea as John himself would have. John was shrewd, to be sure, but Tuck was catching on pretty quickly. Since, though, the greatest concern of both of them was Chelsea, Tuck would take the money as if it were really due him. If John used the money to make Chelsea a princess, then Tuck would make her a queen. He smiled at that, knowing they were on their way to their very own castle.
Driving through the French countryside, already Chelsea was eager to know exactly where they were going. When she discovered they weren’t staying in a hotel in the city, her mind started whirling, wondering exactly what Irene and Tuck had in store for her. Not long after her fourth time to ask Tuck for another hint, the estate began to come into focus. That’s when the driver showed her the castle.
Gasping, Chelsea asked, “Are we staying there?”
“We are.” Tuck reached for her and pulled her nearer. “It’s your very own castle for the week.”
Stunned, she stammered, “You mean it’s just us?”
“Just us. Rare, huh?”
She placed her hand on his face and stroked his cheek. “Very rare.”
Already having children when they married, there had never been time for just them. Having had only one official date and then the one night honeymoon, they needed this time alone.
She sighed and sat back in her seat, saying, “I’m so glad we came.”
As the old stone castle came better into view, she thought, I really do feel like a princess, but she would have never said such a thing, knowing how Tuck felt about Lucy saying John made her one. That was something she would only treasure in her heart.
Hours later, after one of the most incredible meals of her life, Chelsea followed behind Tuck as he led her out and into the gardens. Still, she could hardly believe this was her Tuck pulling her along. Wearing a tuxedo and looking like a movie star, he seemed bigger than life. It wasn’t only she who thought so as Chelsea had noticed several of the young maids staring at him, clearly admiring how handsome he was. Maybe the week before such a thing would have stirred up a bit of jealousy, but not anymore. Clearly, this man had eyes only for her.
Since they had dressed, with her in a slender fit black gown, Tuck had hardly taken his eyes off her. Other than the cocktail dress she wore in L.A., he had never seen her dressed so formally. All evening he admired her, telling her how beautiful she was to him. Many times he caressed her bare shoulders, a few times even, leaning in to kiss them. He was once again the romantic, the man who created the most unforgettable first date and honeymoon. All the months of distance and uncertainty were finally behind them. He was himself again.
They discussed most anything but the girls as Tuck was adamant that the evening be about them. He asked her questions about when she was in school, how things were going with the Keller Foundation, and even listened as she told him about a book she had been reading. This night, he was perfectly attentive and romantic, not the farmer who usually came in exhausted, trying to divide his time between children and a wife. He smiled continuously, causing her to know he was having just as wonderful of a time as she. The night was magical.
Out in the garden, realizing the night air was a bit cooler than was comfortable for her, Tuck removed his jacket and draped it over Chelsea’s shoulders. Her reaction to his gesture was puzzling, a mixture of gratitude with maybe a touch of sadness. Whatever caused such an expression brought John to Tuck’s mind. Maybe he had done something similar. Even if that was the case, he refused to allow the notion to ruin what was such a perfect evening together.
In his penguin suit, he felt quite confident, not at all what he expected. When he first began to get dressed, in his very own dressing chamber with a valet to assist, he felt ridiculous, but as the night wore on, he began to appreciate how such formality on his part was wooing his precious wife. He wasn’t sure he had seen her as happy since they married. She was without question, and she was so breathtaking, he could hardly do anything but stare at her, wondering how he had been so blessed. Not many men could ever hope for a second chance after the way he had blown it, but he had held on to hope, and look at the outcome. She was his, and no matter what, he would always be thankful for every moment together going forward. That would never slip away again.
“I need you to know how sorry I am.” He brushed her hair from her eyes.
Curious, she asked, “Sorry for what?”
“For a while I stopped fighting.” He sighed. “I hadn’t given up, but I didn’t have much left in me to fight.”
Taking her hand, he led her to sit on a bench near a brilliant bed of colorful flowers. The backdrop was idyllic and truly made him feel as if they were in some romantic movie.
“Before we married, I told you I would always fight for you, that I was going to fight for all of you.” Tuck leaned up and rested his elbows on his knees. “What I heard you say took the fight right out of me for a while. Then things got so bad with the house and farm, eventually, I could hardly bear up under the weight of it all.”
He turned to look at her. Smiling, he assured her, “I’m really back in the fight now.”
Chelsea reached for his shoulder and pulled him back. “You don’t have to fight for me. If I’ve learned anything from this time, it’s that I love you more than I even knew. I was terrified of losing you.”
She leaned in closer. “I don’t think it’s wrong that there’s a small stash of love left for him behind some closed door. I think that’s normal. He was my husband and Sara Beth’s father. Because of that, what I feel for you is not some lesser love. The fact that we’ve continued to love each other after all these years and all we’ve put each other through, doesn’t that make this the greater love? That’s what I feel. This is the greater love.”
Chelsea had been pondering these thoughts for some time. It was true. This never ending love they shared was truly the greater love, one that weathered the worst of
life’s storms.
Tuck shook his head, hardly able to agree. “I want to say that it’s okay, that even the smallest bit of love for him behind a closed door is all right, but it’s not. Maybe this makes me selfish, but I want all of you, and I won’t rest until I have it. Bringing you here, making you a queen for a week, this is just the beginning.” He grinned and clarified, “I say queen because you are too much of a woman now to try to be a princess.”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “You’ll see. I’ll do whatever it takes to win you back from him, every ounce of you.” Hesitating a moment, he finally admitted, “I’m not jealous of him. I am jealous for you.”
His words shook her up entirely, reminding her of the deeper place where God had begun to lead her before they married. For a short time, she felt as if she were treading in deeper waters with Him, but then the wedding and the move came. Trouble in their marriage soon took over, and before she knew it, she was wading in the shallows again, not pondering those things which God was trying to show her. This, though, was a spark that ignited what she had felt during that time, a reminder of how God was jealous for her and wanted all of her. Her husband was merely reflecting Jesus in his desire to have all of her as well. For once, she was determined to give them both what they wanted.
In their room and snuggled in bed together after the end of the most perfect night he had ever had, Tuck raised up and propped himself on one elbow. For just a moment he stared at her as she looked up at him with the sweetest expression.
Leaning in, he whispered, “I’m so in love with you.”
Quickly, he covered her lips with his, unwilling to hear her lesser expression of love in return. No matter what she called a greater love, anything but being as completely in love with him as he was with her was what he considered to be the lesser love. Just as he had promised her, he would take it all eventually. He had no doubt of that.
The following morning Chelsea woke to an empty bed. Tempted to go and find Tuck, she instead huddled under the covers and recollected the night before. Of all their nights together, none was more beautiful or passionate, and that was saying something. If there was one area where neither held back, it was in making love, but this past night surpassed them all.
Tuck stood beside the bed eating an apple. “You gonna sleep all day?” He thought she was awake but just lollygagging, as his mama would say.
Peeking out from beneath the covers, she said, “Maybe. Queens do that.”
He shook his head in disagreement. Taking a big bite, he argued while chewing, “I don’t think so. I think they have matters of state.”
She sat up. “Matters of state? I thought this was a honeymoon.”
He sat on the side of the bed and set his apple core on the table. When he reached for her hand, he scooted even nearer to her.
“Last night was a honeymoon.” He grinned and sighed. “Was it ever a honeymoon? But today, we have kingdom business to be about.”
Intrigued, Chelsea watched as Tuck took his Bible from the nightstand. Already he was flipping through the pages until he found what he was looking for.
“Here, read this.” Pointing to the passage, he sat his Bible on her lap.
It was circled and marked up in the twenty-second chapter of Luke, verses 31-32.
“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
After reading, she looked at him, a little puzzled.
Tuck had been up for hours, trying to figure out exactly how to explain all the Lord had shown him over the years.
“This verse, this is exactly what happened to me all those years ago, back when I lost you.”
Talking about it was harder than he had anticipated since his sifting had hurt her most.
“I was so full of myself and arrogant. I honestly thought I was above something like that happening.”
Of all the ways to fall, he would have never dreamed it would be through sexual sin, or if it were sexual sin, he would have presumed it would have been with Chelsea. By the time he had gone off to school, waiting was getting harder and harder, but always he only wanted her.
“I s’pose the Lord needed me to see what was really trapped beneath the surface. It was my sifting.”
He reached for her face and rubbed her cheek gently. “I’m just sorry you were hurt in the process, but, it’s what I needed. I think that sifting continued for some time to come. Life with Lindsey was a nightmare, more so than I can even describe, but I guess that was what the Lord planned to use to really break me, and it did.”
Knowing your wife was continually sleeping with most anyone who would have her was about as humbling as it could get for any man.
“Over the years, God has so reshaped me that I can hardly even recognize myself anymore, and it came from that sifting. It’s what I needed to get me here, where I am now.” He chuckled. “Not exactly in a castle, but maybe so in a way. For me to be about kingdom business, He had to prepare me.”
Reaching for his Bible, he began flipping again to John 21:15. Before showing it to Chelsea, he explained, “For years I thought I was being disciplined, and in a way I was, but it wasn’t as much about being disciplined as it was gaining discipline. I couldn’t remain who I was as a young man.” He arched his eyebrows and assured her, “You didn’t see the real me, how truly proud and arrogant I was, and because of that, I could have never reached anyone from such a place of self-righteousness. I thought sinners just needed to stop sinning. I didn’t realize I was the worst of them all. What I needed was a wake-up call, and I got one. There could have been no greater loss than losing you. He allowed me to fall in a way that would take what mattered most. That opened my eyes and brought me to my knees. God knew exactly what I needed to make me useful.”
He placed the Bible back in her lap. “Now read this one. This is where Jesus restores Peter after his denial of Him.”
Chelsea read the familiar passage where Jesus would ask Peter if he loved Him, and after each response He would speak a variation of feed my lambs or sheep.
“This is my restoration, Chelsea. This is the next part of what I always felt called to do. First, my call is to take care of you and love you unconditionally. Then our little girls. Next, I’m to feed His sheep, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.”
For the time being, he really didn’t want to mention that John spoke similar words in his letter. He would later, but at the moment, he didn’t want his wife’s mind diverted to John.
“With all this money, I can sure feed a lot of sheep.”
“So that’s our kingdom business?”
Never had she felt more proud of Tuck. His excitement was contagious, causing her to remember her own words from years before. She wanted to change the world. In some ways, for some people, she had certainly helped change their world, but not nearly enough somebodies. Before John came to town, she was truly focused on helping others through the foundation, but once he arrived, she struggled to maintain any real focus on it. She threw some money at this cause and that, but never did she fully become engaged as she knew she needed to be. Then his illness came and she all but shut down the foundation. Currently, even though it was operational and was helping many, especially single moms, it was not at all what it could be. Always, she easily allowed her family life to consume her completely. Certainly, her family was to be the priority, and she knew that to be true as long as she had young children, but just as she often tipped off balance in the way she loved God, she did the same in how she served Him.
“I want to do this with you. I want to be about matters of state, too.”
She grinned. If only he knew how much his dream resurrected her own.
“I want to fix up the farmhouse while we wait for the new house to be done. I’m going to ask Bobby and Macy to move in.
I hope that Bobby will take over the operations of our farm.” He was dreaming even bigger. “Who knows, maybe we can merge the two farms and your dad can semi-retire. He deserves it.”
Always, farming was Bobby’s first love. Becoming a plumber was only out of necessity as the Whittaker farm could hardly sustain two families, especially during those lean years.
“If not Bobby, I’ll find someone. That’ll leave us the freedom to travel. We can go. We can go and help and make disciples and feed His sheep.”
He was so excited and had so thoroughly thought through things, that Chelsea could only cry.
“Hey.” He pulled her nearer and whispered, “What is it?”
“I’ve never envisioned a better future than the one you just described.”
Still near, he reminded her, “’No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.’ Who could have ever seen this coming? I know I sure didn’t.”
Within the hour they were packed and leaving for home. The staff was distressed, concerned that their stay was not enjoyed, though both tried to convince them otherwise. How can you explain to a castle staff that there are bigger kingdom matters at hand? That was exactly what they felt. Chelsea was the first to mention going home, and without hesitation, Tuck was on board. On the flight home, it registered to him that he had taken his wife across the ocean for just one night. Who did things like that?
All the way home, they dreamed bigger and bigger. Already they were making plans to adjust the house to accommodate an office for Tuck. They would take the bedroom next to Chelsea’s office and blow out the wall, making a large enough office for the both of them. Together, they would revise the Keller Foundation and use it as a platform to do great things. As a family, they would travel and see the world, allowing the girls the experience of reaching people first hand rather than simply hearing about it from missionaries. Maybe Tuck wouldn’t be a missionary exactly, as he had once presumed was his call, but he was going to be someone who truly reached the world.