The bed creaked as Martha pushed up. “But I don’t understand. Why do you have to go?” The baby cried at that moment. “She’s hungry. I need to feed her, but, but…”
“I’ll come back in before I leave.” Simon backed away as Anna’s feet tapped across the floor.
He reached out to her as she came out, but she backed away. “What’s wrong, Anna? Where are you going?”
She closed the door to Martha’s room, then hurried past him to the kitchen. She sank down at the table and covered her face with her hands. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”
His heart raced, and he fell into the chair next to her. “Find out what? You’re scaring me.”
She pulled a letter from the pocket of her apron and handed it him. He smoothed the crumpled pages on the table and began to read. His mouth gaped wider with each sentence that he read. When he’d finished, he looked up at her.
“You’re not going to New York, are you?”
She nodded.
He jumped up, grabbed her hands, and pulled her up. She looked at him with a startled expression. He clenched his teeth and glared at her. “How can you even think about doing this? Not after everything we’ve had together. You belong here with me.”
She tried to pull away. “No, I can’t stay with you. Please don’t make this any harder than it is already.”
He released her. “Anna, I love you. I want to spend my life with you, and you’re throwing that away like it’s nothing.”
She balled her fists and held her arms next to her body. “There’s no use arguing about this. I could never make you understand. I don’t want to stay with you. I want to go to New York.”
He recoiled from her words and backed away, shaking his head slowly. “I’m sorry. I love you so much…and I thought you returned my feelings. I guess I was wrong. Go on then, Anna. I hope you find what you’re looking for in New York. It doesn’t seem to be here in the Cove.”
Tears stung her eyes. “Simon, please try to understand how much this means to me. It’s my dream. I don’t want to lose mine like you lost yours.”
He blinked in surprise at her words. Did he want Anna to stay in the Cove and always wonder what it would have been like if she’d followed her dream? He couldn’t stand it if one day she regretted staying and blamed him for the decision. He exhaled. “I don’t want you to lose your dream either, Anna. I wish you the best.”
Simon turned and strode from the house to the spot where he tied his horse earlier. He grabbed the reins, mounted, and galloped away without a backward glance. Since little Anna’s birth, he had really thought he was making her understand how they belonged together. He’d been wrong. There would never be anyone for him but Anna, but her desires lay somewhere else. He would have to learn to live with that.
Chapter 25
Simon stared at the cold cup of coffee on the kitchen table in front of him and groaned. He pushed his open Bible to the side and listened for some sound outside the cabin. The morning silence overwhelmed him.
Many times during the past few months he had sat in this room and imagined Anna here, laughing with him, teasing him, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead. But she had ended that dream yesterday.
The sound of a buggy stopping outside caught his attention, and he walked to the front door. Doc Prentiss was climbing down, and Simon met him on the porch. “Morning, Doc. You’re out kind of early. You just comin’ by to visit, or can I help you with something?”
Doc Prentiss took off his hat and wiped the perspiration from his face. “It’s Anna. She won’t talk to me or Granny about this. She’s mighty unhappy, and I thought I’d come see if there isn’t something you can do to change her mind about leaving.”
Simon shook his head. “I’ve tried, but it’s no use. She wants to go to New York, and I can’t fight that.”
Doc Prentiss sat down on the steps and Simon settled beside him. “Simon, ever since Anna was a child she’s talked of being a nurse in a big hospital. I always hoped she would follow me to the mountains instead. I have to confess there was an ulterior motive behind my bringing her to Granny’s. I thought she would fall in love with the Cove and wouldn’t be able to leave.”
Simon laughed joylessly. “Well, it didn’t work, Doc.”
Doc Prentiss put his hat back on. “That’s why I came to see you. I hope you’ll try again to make her stay. Granny tells me Anna loves you and wants to stay, but she’s too stubborn. Too determined.”
Simon shook his head. “There’s nothing I can do. Nothing I want to do. Not anymore.”
A stunned expression flashed on Doc Prentiss’s face. “What do you mean?”
Simon stared at the ground for a few moments before he spoke. “I want to tell you something, Doc. I’ve never told this to another soul except Anna.”
For the next few minutes he related how his dream had crashed when he made the decision to stay in the Cove and pastor the church. When he began to talk of how he’d agonized for the past three years over why God ignored his pleas to let him serve in a large city where he would encounter many people without Christ, his voice trembled, and he rose to his feet.
Doc Prentiss stared at him for a moment before he stood and placed his hand on Simon’s shoulder. “So you don’t want to be the cause of Anna giving up her dream like you had to.”
“That’s right. I know what it’s like to want something you can’t have. I don’t want that for her.”
Sadness flickered in Doc Prentiss’s eyes, and he shook his head. “Oh, Simon, how could a man of God be so wrong?”
“What are you talking about? Wrong about what?”
Doc Prentiss put his hand on Simon’s shoulder and stared into his eyes. “When God called you to be His servant, He promised to equip you with what you needed to serve Him. He didn’t ask to see a plan of what you were going to do during your ministry because He knew what He wanted you to do and where He wanted you to go.”
Simon frowned. “But He had sent me to Milligan College, and all my teachers said I had the best speaking ability of any student they’d seen in a long time. They thought I had a great future ahead of me and would lead great numbers of people to the Lord. And I know I could have done that if I hadn’t let the people of the Cove talk me into staying after my parents died. Nearly everybody in the Cove is a Christian. They don’t need me. I think about those outside these mountains who need to be told about Jesus.”
Doc Prentiss chuckled. “Simon, you’re looking at this thing all wrong. Even Christians who are mature in the faith need a shepherd. And just because they’re believers doesn’t mean they don’t have needs. Everybody has problems. When trouble strikes a family in the Cove, who do they think of first? You, that’s who. Because you’ve been there for them, and they know you’ll help them. And they love and respect you for the kind of pastor you are. I don’t think they’d know what to do without you.”
Simon’s heart dropped to the pit of his stomach. “So you’re saying you think I’ll be here forever?”
“Forever?” Doc Prentiss shrugged. “I have no idea what God has planned for you. Only He knows that. I thought I’d be practicing in a big hospital in Nashville or Knoxville, but God brought me to these mountains. Because that was His plan for me, I’ve never regretted it.”
It was a long moment before Simon asked the question whose answer had eluded him for the past three years. “But how do I know what God’s will is? How did you know?”
“I followed God’s instructions.”
Simon frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Doc Prentiss walked to his buggy, opened his medical bag sitting on the seat, and pulled out a well-worn Bible. When he returned to Simon’s side, he had already opened the book and held it out. “I found the answer in a verse I have underlined. Read what it says.”
Simon peered down at the page to the underlined scripture. “‘If any man serve me,’” he read aloud, “‘let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be
: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.’”
Doc Prentiss tapped the page with his index finger. “Simon, God didn’t say we were to follow our dreams. He said we were to follow Him. If we do that and serve Him, He will honor us. Until you quit blaming God and surrender your will to Him, He’s not going to honor you with the blessings He’s ready to give you.”
Simon bit his lip and nodded. “I’ll think about what you’ve said.”
A long sigh escaped Doc Prentiss’s mouth. “Well, you better think in a hurry because Anna’s leaving today.”
“Today?” Simon’s throat tightened. He tried to speak but couldn’t.
“Anna said you read the letter. Didn’t you realize today is August 10?”
He frowned and shook his head. “I must have skipped over that part.”
Doc Prentiss smiled and turned back toward the buggy. “Whether or not you can make Anna stay, I don’t know. But I do know if you don’t get your relationship with God worked out, you’re not going to be content with anyone—even her.”
With that he climbed into the buggy and picked up the reins. Simon watched him drive away. He had never felt so helpless in his life. If what Doc Prentiss said was true, in all the time he’d been talking to God about his disappointment he’d failed to open his heart to what God was trying to tell him.
There was nothing more he could do to make Anna stay, but now he realized there was something else he had to settle: his relationship with the God he loved. He had failed his Lord—failed in the mission to which he’d been called.
He leaped up the steps and rushed into his house. His Bible lay on the kitchen table where he’d left it. Turning to the book of John, he sank down in his chair and began to read.
For the next two hours he didn’t move from the table but searched Scripture after Scripture, trying to find a word that would give him an answer. Anything that might tell him why God had made him remain in the Cove at a small church. More confused than ever, he turned back to the Scripture Doc Prentiss had shown him. John 12:26.
He read the verse again. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.
In desperation he covered his face with his hands and cried out. “God, I don’t understand why You seem so far away from me. I’ve stayed here and tried to do Your work here, even though I thought You needed me to do great things for You somewhere else. You don’t answer when I pray. Why do You ignore my prayers? Tell me!”
A voice that began as a soft whisper and swelled like thunder flowed through his body. It was as if the speaker sat next to him, but there was no one in the room. Simon lowered his shaking hands from his face, stilled, and listened, for he knew the whisper was not of this world.
“Simon,” it said, “the problem is not that I need you. It’s that you need Me.” Love. The words spoke love.
Simon pushed up from the chair and steadied himself on trembling legs. He wondered if Moses had experienced the same feeling when God spoke to him from the burning bush. God had a message for Moses that day, and He'd given one to him today.
Simon fell to his knees. “God, I’m Yours. I surrender my will to You. Wherever You want me to go, I will go. From this day forward I will serve You with my whole heart.”
Simon stayed on his knees for long minutes. Gone were the dreams of yesterday. His heart was filled with love for the people of the Cove and how God wanted to use him to serve them. If only everyone could know the peace that he had found!
Anna. If only Anna could know that peace.
She was leaving today. He had to go to her and tell her what had happened to him. If she told him it was God’s will for her to go to New York, he wouldn’t try to persuade her differently. He only wanted her to be at peace about her decision.
The clock on the mantel in the parlor chimed twelve. It was already noon, and Doc Prentiss had said she was leaving today.
He rushed out of the house and toward the barn. Within minutes he had saddled his horse and was racing toward Granny’s house. He prayed he wouldn’t be too late.
Anna stood at the back door, the dishes she had been washing forgotten, and looked across the fields behind Granny’s house to the mountains. A hawk was circling up above. How she would miss this view—the trees that sloped up the hillsides, the early afternoon sunlight, the blue haze that hung over the low mountains.
Robert would be here any minute now. Her trunk was packed and waiting in her room. Granny had been quiet all morning as she bustled about, and now she had disappeared. A squawk came from the direction of the henhouse, and Anna recognized the familiar protest of Jezebel, the new hen Cecil had given Granny. Granny emerged from the small building, her apron bundled up in front of her to form a pouch for the eggs resting inside.
Uncle Charles stepped up behind her. “Is your trunk packed?”
“Yes.” She nodded without turning. “I missed you this morning. Where did you go?”
“I had to make a call, but I made it back in time to eat. I don’t pass up an invitation to sit at Granny’s table when I’m in these parts.”
She took a deep breath. Granny’s cooking was just one of the things she was going to miss. “I know what you mean.”
“What are you doing?”
She smiled and turned to face him. “Just making some memories.”
“Anna, it’s not too late…”
Anna pushed past him and returned to the task she had abandoned earlier. She plunged her hands into the soapy water and began to scrub the plates from their noon meal. “Did you sleep well? I didn’t ask you this morning.”
Her uncle sat down at the table. “I’ve slept in some mighty strange places in these mountains. A quilt spread on Granny’s floor is almost like sleeping in luxury. I don’t think I stirred once I settled down.” He regarded her for a moment. “What about you?”
She finished drying the cup she was holding and stacked the clean dishes on the shelf on the wall. “Oh, I slept off and on. I was up early to pack.” She untied the apron from around her waist, folded it, and hung it on the back of the chair. “When are you leaving?”
He stood up and stretched. “I’ll head out as soon as you and Robert get on the road.” He pulled the watch out of his pocket and looked at it. “Robert said in my letter he would be staying in Pigeon Forge the night before he got here. He should be here soon.”
“I suppose we’ll stay at Mrs. Johnson’s inn tonight. At least I’ll get to see Naomi.”
Her uncle nodded. “I saw her a few days ago. She and the boys are doing fine. She sends her love.”
Anna tilted her head and listened for a moment. “I think I heard a horse. Maybe that’s him now.”
Together they walked out of the house into the front yard. Robert climbed from the buggy and smiled at her. He pushed his hat to the back of his head, stepped forward, and planted a kiss on her cheek.
“Anna, you sure are a sight for sore eyes. I’ve really missed my little sister.”
Anna smile and hugged him. “I’ve missed you too. How is Mama?”
The corners of his blue eyes crinkled. “She can’t wait to see you.” He turned to his uncle and grabbed his hand. “Good to see you, Uncle Charles. Thanks for taking care of Anna while she’s been here.”
Uncle Charles pumped his nephew’s hand. “Oh, she’s had a lot of folks looking after her. Anna’s come to mean a lot to the people in the Cove.”
Robert looked back at her. “That’s my little sister. She takes after Ma.”
Uncle Charles nodded. “Yes, she does.”
Robert’s gaze drifted over the cabin before he glanced at Anna. “So this is where you’ve been living all summer? Where is Mrs. Lawson? I want to meet her and thank her for all she’s done for you.”
“She should be out in a minute. She saved some food from the noon meal for you.”
Robert followed her to the front porch. “That’s kind of her, but we need to leave
soon.”
Anna whirled to face her brother before stepping through the front door. Panic boiled up in her. It was really going to happen. She was about to leave. “When?”
Robert glanced at their uncle. “As soon as the horse is watered and has rested some. We need to get to Pigeon Forge before dark. Mrs. Johnson is expecting us.”
Anna nodded and led him into the cabin. Granny was standing before the fireplace.
Anna pulled Robert toward her. “Granny, I’d like you to meet my brother, Robert.”
Granny held out her hand, and he grasped it. “Thank you for your hospitality to Anna, Mrs. Lawson. Our family is very grateful for the time you spent with her. I know this has been a rewarding experience for her.”
Granny’s gaze flitted to her. “Not as much as for me. She’s a smart woman, and I hate to be losin’ her.”
Robert nodded. “From what you wrote me, I believe she’s going to be a good nurse.”
“She already is.” Granny glanced at Anna. “Take Robert into the kitchen and git that plate of food I saved him out of the pie safe. He’s traveled a long way today and must be powerful hungry.”
Robert grinned. “To tell the truth, I’m starved. I haven’t had anything since breakfast.”
Granny propped her hands on her hips. “You mean Miz Johnson didn’t fix you no basket of food?”
“No ma’am.”
Granny sniffed, her hands planted firmly on her hips. “Well, then you done come to the right place. There’s nothing I like better’n feedin’ a hungry man.”
Anna trudged after her brother and Granny as they entered the kitchen. What was the matter with her? This was the moment she’d been waiting for all summer. As soon as Robert ate, they would climb in the buggy and begin the first step of the adventure she’d planned for years. She just wished she could be happier about it.
Simon urged the horse to move faster. The sun was getting high in the sky, and he hoped he wouldn’t be too late.
Granny’s house came into view, and he heaved a sigh of relief when he saw the buggy parked there. A man was holding a bucket up for the horses to drink from. If this was Anna’s brother, then they hadn’t left yet.
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