by Donna Every
“Hi KT. I just wanted to apologize for coming on to you last night so strong especially after what you’d just told me. All I can say is that I lost my head. I’m sorry.”
KT stood there in amazement. Daniel was apologizing for last night? It wasn’t as if she’d tried to stop him, far from.
“Daniel, please don’t say anymore, I’m mortified at my behavior and quite frankly I don’t think we should see each other again, at least not alone.”
“OK, if that’s what will work for you, we can hang out with other people, but I don’t want to stop seeing you KT. I’m beginning to really care about you. Why do you think I stopped last night? And believe me it was the hardest thing I ever did.”
KT felt a thrill at Daniel’s words. It was true, he did stop when he could have pushed her to forget everything but what he was making her feel, but he didn’t. Could she really believe that Daniel seriously cared about her? She felt a surge of hope.
“Thanks Daniel. Maybe we could meet at cell group on Wednesday night if you want to.”
“Great! I’ll see you there. I hope you haven’t forgotten the cocktail party on Friday. Will you still come with me?
“Ok,” KT agreed reluctantly.
“I’ll be on my best behavior,” promised Daniel.
“Where have I heard that before?” asked KT wryly.
Daniel hung up with a satisfied smile. At least KT was speaking to him and he’d see her on Wednesday. He’d prove to KT that he could keep his hands off her if, in fact, he could.
KT hung up the phone and immediately called her friend Des. As soon as she picked up the phone KT said:
“Desiree Rodriguez, you obviously haven’t been praying for me as you promised!”
“KT, what’s happened? I must admit that I haven’t been praying as much as I ought to.”
“Well that much is obvious. I went out on a date with Daniel last night and almost ended up in bed with him! My bed! The only reason we probably didn’t is because he stopped!”
“KT, you’re kidding!”
“I kid you not,” replied KT.
‘You said that he stopped? That’s amazing. Maybe my prayers did work,” added Des smugly. ‘Seriously though, if he has that effect on you, you should avoid being alone with him.”
“Tell me about it. Des, he actually said that he’s beginning to care about me, that’s why he stopped.”
“Wow! Maybe God is doing something.”
“I hope so,” confessed KT. “I really hope so.”
Chapter 18
KT made sure that she arrived at cell group early on Wednesday so that she would get there before Daniel, if he actually showed up. She was both looking forward to seeing him and dreading it.
Richard opened the door and greeted her with a hug. She handed him the chips she’d brought to contribute and headed to the living room where she began to help Ann arrange the furniture for the night.
“Hi KT, you’re very early. Isn’t Daniel coming tonight?”
“I’m not sure. If he is, he’ll drive himself.”
“I thought you two would come together.”
“We decided that it would be best to have some space between us,” said KT. “Things were beginning to get a bit intense.”
“Oh,” said Ann understanding. “By the way, where is Daniel spiritually?”
“I’d say pretty far from God. He said that he believes that God is out there somewhere but he’d never given him much thought before his surgery.”
“OK. Well you know he’s welcome any time. We’ll just love him as he is and let God do the rest.”
The members of the cell group began to arrive a few minutes later. Every time the door opened KT tensed, waiting to see if it would be Daniel. At about 8 o’clock everyone was there and still Daniel hadn’t shown up. She didn’t know if to be glad or disappointed.
“We’d better get started,” said Ann as she put on a CD.
Just then the doorbell rang and Richard went to answer it.
“Welcome Daniel,” KT heard him say in the hallway.
“Hi, Richard. Here’s my contribution; some sushi rolls. Getting them made me a bit late. Sorry”
“No problem. We’re going to be spoiled tonight!” exclaimed Richard. “Daniel’s here,” he announced leading Daniel into the living room, “and he brought sushi!”
KT didn’t hear the cheers and enthusiastic greetings. Her heart had started racing and she tried all she could to avoid Daniel’s eyes but she felt his compelling stare on her. Eventually she could withstand it no longer and she met his eyes.
“Hi KT,” Daniel smiled gently at her.
“Hi Daniel,” she replied, relieved that his face bore no indication that he remembered Friday night.
“OK everyone, let’s get started,” said Ann turning up the CD again.
Daniel went over and sat next to KT on the two-seater couch. She was acutely aware of him. He looked very attractive in black jeans and a black sweater and she could smell a hint of expensive cologne on him. His thigh brushed against hers and she withdrew a bit more to her side of the couch.
“How’ve you been?” he whispered to her taking her hand.
“Fine,” said KT attempting to take her hand back.
Daniel resisted and kept her hand clasped in his, resting their joint hands on his thigh. KT had to admit that it felt right. Daniel squeezed her hand slightly and fought the urge to bring it to his lips. He tried to focus on what Ann was saying.
“Does anyone have anything they want to share, anything that happened this week?”
One of the guys, David said: “Yeah, I do. I just want to thank you guys for praying for me about that advertising campaign I was working on. As I told you I couldn’t get a handle on the campaign and no ideas were coming to me. Well, on Saturday at about 2.30 in the morning, I suddenly woke up and ideas began to flow. It was as if a tap had been turned on. I couldn’t even get them down on paper fast enough. I put together a basic Power Point presentation over the weekend and showed it to my boss on Monday and he loved it. Our clients came in and saw it today and they were blown away! It was exactly what they wanted. That was totally God!”
Everybody started to congratulate David and to say how awesome God was. Daniel looked around at them curiously. He glanced at KT beside him to see her reaction and found her examining his face as if to see what he was thinking. He raised his eyebrow slightly at her as if to say: That was God? She smiled and turned her attention back to the group where another guy was about to share his story.
“You guys know that I can’t start my day without a Starbucks right? Well, I always go to the same one every day before I go to my office. Last Thursday I had this feeling to go to one a block further away so I went. Well when I was waiting for them to call my name I looked around and saw a guy I went to college with. I haven’t seen him for a few years so we got to talking and exchanged business cards. It turns out that his family has a big construction company. He looked at my card and told me that this was a real coincidence because he was just about to tender the supply and installation of the air-conditioning system for a building they’re going to be putting up soon.”
“Jackson’s business supplies and installs a/c systems,” whispered KT into Daniel’s good ear.
“So I asked him if he could send me the specs and the Bill of Quantities and give me the opportunity to price it. So he e-mailed everything to me that same day. I worked all day and night, priced it and sent it back to him the next day and what do you know, he called me yesterday to say that I got the contract. A major contract! Now that was a divine appointment. More important, I was able to tell him how amazing it was for us to meet in the first place. And now that we’ve made contact again, I can invite him to cell group sometime.”
There was more celebrating and praising God although Daniel wasn’t sure what God had to do with it.
“What’s a divine appointment?” he whispered to KT during the celebration.
“It�
�s when God sets up an appointment for you to meet someone for a specific purpose. In this case it was to give Jackson the opportunity to connect with his classmate again and to get that contract.”
“OK,” said Daniel skeptically. He believed that God was out there somewhere, but did he really get involved in people’s business? Did he set up appointments for people to meet or give people business ideas? He’d never heard of God doing that kind of thing before but these people seemed to believe it, even KT.
Just then one of the women, whose name he remembered from the last time as Dana said: “I have a word for Daniel.” Everyone went quiet. Richard immediately got out a digital recorder.
Daniel quickly glanced at KT. What did that mean? She squeezed his hand reassuringly.
“Daniel, the Lord is showing me that at a young age you felt deserted and forsaken. It’s as if someone left you or rejected you (I don’t know if it was one of your parents or both) and I hear the Lord saying: Though father and mother forsake you, I will receive you.” Daniel tensed and unconsciously held KT’s hand tighter. How did this stranger know this? He hadn’t even told KT about his past.
“Because of that you’ve protected your heart by not allowing people to get too close to you and you’ve built a wall around it and the Lord is saying: I’ve started to take down that wall and I’m going to take away your damaged heart and give you a new heart.”
“And I see that when you were growing up you lacked a lot of material things and because of that you made a vow that you would never lack anything again and you’ve kept that promise to yourself at great cost. The Lord says you’ve excelled according to the world’s standards but now he wants you to excel in the things of God. He wants to use you to do great things for Him in the business world. I’m also hearing the word ‘Oneness’. I don’t know if that means anything to you now but in the days ahead the Lord will give you revelation concerning that word. Thank you Lord.”
Once again people began clapping and praising God. Daniel barely heard what they were saying because he was in such shock. He hardly knew what happened for the rest of the night because he kept replaying the words in his head over and over. When the group broke up for refreshments, he told KT that he had to leave. Richard took his e-mail address and promised to send the word to him that he had recorded on the digital recorder they kept for that purpose.
He hardly remembered saying his goodbyes or responding to the invitations to come again. KT said that she would leave as well and walked Daniel to his car.
“Will you sit with me for a while?” Daniel asked quietly.
At KT’s nod, he opened the passenger door for her and then walked around to his side, got in and started the powerful engine, adjusting the heat so that the car quickly warmed up. He leaned on the steering wheel, looking blindly ahead and said: “Wow! That was the weirdest thing that ever happened to me! Is that woman psychic?”
“No,” said KT softly, “she’s prophetic.”
“What’s prophetic?”
“That means she has the gift of prophecy. Prophecy is when someone hears a message or gets a vision from God for someone else. What Dana said to you was a word of knowledge which means that God gave her supernatural knowledge about something that only you and he would know. God sometimes uses that to get someone’s attention.”
“Well he certainly got mine,” said Daniel. “That was so accurate it was spooky.” He shook his head as if to clear it.
“Does God speak to other people like that? Does he speak to you?”
“God is always speaking. Sometimes I hear him clearly and sometimes I’m not sure if it’s him or my own thoughts.”
Daniel was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Do you think God speaks to people like me who don’t even acknowledge him?”
“I’m sure he does. Why do you ask?”
“When I was with you on Friday night I desperately wanted to make love with you KT,” said Daniel looking her deeply in the eyes. KT looked away. “But when I was about to open the door to your apartment so that we could go inside, I heard a voice say: ‘No Daniel’. I thought maybe it was my conscience or that I had imagined it. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe it was God.”
KT cringed at Daniel’s mention of Friday night but she said “Maybe it was. I’m glad you listened.”
“I need to go home and think about this some more,” said Daniel distractedly. KT didn’t press him to talk about it; she knew that he was overwhelmed. In fact she was a bit overwhelmed herself but at least she now understood Daniel Tennant a lot better than she did before.
As Daniel pulled away from the curb snow began to fall. The thought of staying in New York for the rest of the winter was not appealing. There and then he decided to fly to Barbados and spend the last two months before he went back to work. He had a condominium on the luxurious West Coast that he’d bought a few years ago and he’d only used it twice. He’d get Margaret to call his agent tomorrow and tell her to get it ready for him. The idea was beginning to sound more and more appealing; two months on a beach in Barbados with nothing to do but relax and do some thinking. The only drawback was that he’d miss KT like crazy. He wondered if she would fly out for a visit. Somehow he didn’t think so. Maybe the separation would be good for them. Anyway absence was supposed to make the heart grow fonder. He certainly hoped it would make KT’s fonder.
Chapter 19
Daniel had spent a restless night. He kept replaying Dana’s words in his head. Was God really speaking to him? How else would Dana know that his father had left and he’d felt rejected, that he’d made a vow that he’d never lack for anything again? That was amazing. And if it was God, why was he speaking to him now after all these years? What did he expect from him? What did he mean he wanted him to excel in the things of God? What were they and how could he excel in them if he didn’t know what they were? What did oneness mean? The thoughts swirled around in his head until he felt dizzy. He must have fallen asleep at some point because when he woke up the clock was saying 6.54 a.m. but he didn’t feel at all rested.
He made a cup of coffee while he waited impatiently for Margaret to get to the office. Once he got something in his head he was like a pit bull and refused to let go until he made it happen. The thought of getting out of Manhattan and spending some time just relaxing in Barbados had now fallen into that category and he was impatient to get it sorted out. To pass the time he started going through books that he wanted to read on the trip. Presence of course, Jack Welch’s Straight from the Gut which he wanted to read again as well and Built to Last by Collins and Porras. He could always buy a novel or some magazines there.
At exactly 8.30 he called Margaret.
“Daniel Tennant’s office,” answered Margaret.
“Hi, Margaret.”
‘Daniel! I’d expected you to be back at work as soon as you got the OK to drive. When are you coming back?”
“Not for another couple of months, Marg. I find I don’t have the urge to get back in the saddle just yet, which is why I’m calling you. I need you to call my agent in Barbados and ask her to get the condo ready for Sunday, then book me on a flight on AA to Barbados coming back just before April 1 which is when I’m due to come back to the office.”
“One ticket? You’re going to Barbados for two months alone?” Margaret asked incredulously.
“Yes Margaret, alone. I need to do some thinking.”
‘That’s sounds wonderful Daniel. Make sure you get lots of rest as well. And try to keep out of trouble.”
“I plan to Margaret. Let me know when you’ve got everything sorted out. I need to tell KT when I’m leaving.”
“KT? She’s your therapist isn’t she? Haven’t you finished your therapy?”
“Yes but we’ve been out once since then, Mother,” teased Daniel, “and I went to her cell group a couple of times.”
“Daniel Tennant, did you say you went to a cell group? And not once but twice? That’s amazing!”
“Don’t get carried
away Margaret, I’m far from converted. Just do the bookings and e-mail me the itinerary.”
“Right away, boss,” said Margaret with a smile in her voice.
As soon as Daniel got confirmation of his flight and Margaret had spoken to his agent, he called KT on her cell. He hoped she wasn’t with a patient because he knew she wouldn’t answer the phone.
“Hello?” Luck was with him.
“Hi, KT, it’s Daniel. I know you’re at work so I’ll be quick. I was wondering if you’re free for dinner tonight. There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What is it Daniel? Can’t you tell me now? Besides you know what happened the last time we had dinner.”
“Dinner wasn’t the problem it was afterwards. Look, I promise to pick you up, take you straight to the restaurant and back home. I won’t even get out of the car. Scout’s honor.”
“Daniel Tennant, I know you were not a scout so don’t try that on me. OK what time?”
“I’ll come at eight and promise to have you in bed by eleven. Alone” he added with a smile in his voice.
“No kidding! Gotta go, my next patient just arrived” said KT.
“See you later,” replied Daniel. “By the way this doesn’t replace Friday. We’re still on for that cocktail party.”
“OK. See you later.”
KT wondered what Daniel wanted to talk to her about. She knew it would drive her crazy until she found out. Was it about what happened at cell group last night? Was it about them? Not that there was any them. Maybe it was about their date. This was not helping. She used all of her will power to put it out of her mind and focus on her patient.
Later that night
KT hurried from her apartment and climbed into Daniel’s car. True to his word he didn’t even get out of the car.
“Hi Daniel,” she said breathlessly.
“Hi KT. I hope you didn’t have to rush.”
“Not really. So where are we going tonight? Or is it a surprise?” she asked as he put the car in gear.