The Waiting

by Carol James

  She threw the lasagna back into the freezer and grabbed her purse from the counter. She couldn’t stay here. She’d leave a note for Cassie in case she got home from Sophie’s before she returned.

  ~*~

  The ride to The Perks was a blur. Katherine settled into one of the high back wooden booths near the door, placed her chai tea on the table, and pulled her notebook out of her purse. Any appetite she might have had earlier was gone. The warmth of the wood and stone decor mixed with the calm classical music and rich aroma of numerous blends of coffee wrapped her soul in a blanket of comfort. Going to a restaurant alone was generally unappealing, but not today. This was the perfect time and place to consider this morning’s sermon.

  Her gaze was drawn to movement in the far corner as a man stood and stepped out of the booth closest to the stone fireplace, cold and flameless in today’s spring weather. Her heart pounded as Sam began to make his way toward the door behind her. Hiding was impossible. She’d attract more attention if she tried to slide under the table than if she just sat there. Maybe he wouldn’t notice her. As his gaze fell on her, he briefly lifted up a hand in recognition. Too late.

  He altered his course just enough to end up beside her table. “Hi.” His voice was deep, his smile almost imperceptible. “You here alone?”

  “Yes. Cassie’s at Sophie’s. What about you?”

  His eyes were soft, the normal twinkle missing.

  “Brad left about ten minutes ago. I’ve just been sitting here thinking. It’s a good place for that. My aunt and uncle are keeping their three grandsons this weekend, so the house is a bit...uh, I mean...really chaotic.” He leaned his head to the side. “I’m working hard to rid myself of the British expressions and accent I’ve picked up over the years.”

  “You mean to get rid of?”

  “Exactly.” He smiled. “When I think I’ve conquered them and relax, the accent and the expressions creep back in.” He hooked his thumbs into his front pockets and rocked back and forth. He was wearing cowboy boots. He looked toward the exit door and then back at her. “Well...”

  “Would you like to join me?” Her brain had lost all control of her mouth.

  “Sure.” He scooted into the booth across from her and rested his forearms on the table. His fingers reached out and gently traced the edges of her notebook. “What’s this?”

  She placed her fingers on the black embossed rectangle and gently drew it closer to her. “My notebook.”

  “Notebook?”

  “Yes. I started doing this years ago as an organizational tool. I make a list of what I need to accomplish each day on the left-hand page, and then on the right side, I put notes from that day. Every night before I go to bed, I check off what I’ve accomplished and then review my list for the next day.”

  “I get it. Kind of like a calendar.”

  No, he didn’t really get it. “Kind of, but not exactly. I write down thoughts, dreams, things I want to remember or that I’m praying about. Just kind of whatever’s on my mind. That way I can look back over the pages and relive memories from my life.”

  He nodded. “More like a diary than a calendar.”

  “You’re getting warmer.”

  “So how long have you been doing this?”

  “Since middle school, and I’ve saved them all.”

  “And you write in it every day?”

  “Probably seems kind of silly, I imagine. But I brought it because I made notes from the sermon today, and I wanted to go back over them and really take a few minutes to let the ideas sink in.”

  “I love the concept.” His eyes warmed. “Speaking of the sermon, church was...interesting.” The barely perceptible smile returned. “Maybe thought-provoking is a better description. I honestly can’t remember the last time I went.”

  “Really? It’s been that long?”

  “Yeah. Once we moved to North Carolina, soccer became my universe. My games were on Sundays, so I never got plugged in to a church.” A boyish vulnerability settled in his eyes as they focused over her shoulder. “Then in college, I was too busy. And after I graduated, I was too cool.” His forehead wrinkled as he lowered his brow and fixed his gaze back on hers. “As I said the other night—fame, fortune, and football. I got everything I ever wanted.”

  Why was life like that? Some people who couldn’t care less about God got what they wanted in spite of themselves, and others who tried to follow God, obey the rules, and live right didn’t.

  “What about you?”

  “What?” Her situation, her life, what she had or didn’t have was none of his business.

  “I’ll bet you’re a church girl. I’ll bet you go all the time.” He winked.

  “Oh, church. Well, I did until about a month after my mother’s...” She paused.

  “Passing?” The playfulness was gone.

  “Look, Sam. Don’t take this wrong. Why do people feel the need to use some ridiculous euphemism? It’s not like she got a C+ on her report card. She was killed in a wreck. She died. Not saying the word doesn’t make it any less real or less painful.”

  His only response was a nod.

  She sighed. “When everybody at church started telling me that I should be comforted by the fact that her ‘passing’ was God’s will and plan, I stopped going.” As an unexpected lump rose in her throat, her eyes filled with tears. No, no—she couldn’t cry in front of him.

  Too late. While the tears spilled down her cheeks, she forced a whisper. “Sorry. I can’t figure it all out. I don’t know why it happened. I just don’t see how going to buy a new pair of shoes in a rainstorm and then sliding into the rear end of a dump truck was the perfect plan of a loving God. No matter what anyone says. Couldn’t she have just been careless or in the wrong place at the wrong time?” Her throat ached from the pain of speaking. “I have to believe that God loved my mother as much as, no, even more than we did, and that He loves us, too. His heart has to be broken for us. That’s the only way I can make any sense of it.”

  Sam reached over and placed a hand on hers. His touch was warm. “Sometimes in trying to make sense of the senseless, people say stuff they shouldn’t. They can’t explain the unexplainable, but they want to make things better, to offer comfort and ease pain. And they don’t think through their words. I imagine those words were spoken because they loved you.”

  “I guess.” She’d only shared these feelings with one other person. “After the funeral, when I went back to Dallas, some days I’d forget she’d died.” She paused to steady her voice. “My father and sister were home grieving, but I was going on with life as if nothing had changed. And then I’d pick up the phone to call her...” She bit her bottom lip as her chin quivered and then whispered the words buried deep in her heart, “I was such a bad daughter.” Her sobs shook her shoulders.

  Sam stood, moved to her side of the booth, and slid in next her. After pulling some napkins from the dispenser on the table, he placed his fingertips under her chin and turned her face toward him. He quieted her as if she were a baby and gently dabbed away her tears. “Sh-h-h-h. Sh-h-h-h, Beth. You are not a bad daughter.” He slipped his arm around her and pulled her close.

  She should push away, but she couldn’t.

  “You’ve given up a portion of your life to come help your father and sister. Your mother would be proud of you, I’m quite sure.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder into the comfort of his embrace.

  The deep bass of his voice vibrated his chest as he spoke. “My dad died about three years ago. I came home from the UK for the funeral, but since I saw him only a few times a year, resuming my regular life after I went back—feeling normal, forgetting—was easy. Until I’d sit down at the computer to send him an e-mail or, like you, pull my phone out of my pocket to call him. And then the sorrow would come. Just like you, I felt guilty that I could go on with life while my mom and sisters struggled back home. Their grief was concentrated—more compacted—because he was a part of their everyday l
ives. Mine was more sporadic and spread out.”

  He squeezed her shoulder, his words soft. “But my feelings, like yours, weren’t any less real than those of the rest of my family. Just different because of our circumstances of life. In the end, we all suffered a terrible loss. We all hurt. We all grieved.”

  As his hand softly rubbed her upper arm, she looked up into his eyes. Clark had told her she was wrong to doubt God’s will. He’d said she shouldn’t question what happened. That she should trust God and accept that it was for their best. What comfort was she supposed to find in those words?

  But Sam hadn’t judged her—hadn’t criticized her for feelings she couldn’t control. He’d listened and shared his experience. She leaned back against him for a few seconds and then sat up. “Thanks, Sam.”

  As she sniffed he handed her a dry napkin, and she knew what she had to do. “Put me in, Coach.”

  His brow wrinkled. “What?”

  “Now entering the game in the position of chief Two-Step-Rehabber—Katherine Herrington.”

  8

  Katherine climbed into bed, her heart light. Tonight had been so much fun. No one at The Cantina would have guessed this was only their third time to dance together. Juanita would have been really proud if she’d seen them.

  She opened her notebook and checked off the last entry on today’s list. Her breathing caught as the words she’d jotted down earlier this week registered—Date with Sam. She’d called it a date even though he’d never referred to whatever they were doing as dating.

  Certainly, the first time they’d gone out had been an official date, although not arranged by either of them. The times afterward, though, had been—according to Sam—“penance, payment, and rehab.” Yet, no matter what names he’d given these times together, anyone else would have called them dates.

  But dating involved attraction on some level. And as usual, he hadn’t tried to kiss her good night. Just another hands-in-the-pockets good-bye on her doorstep. He was new in town and probably didn’t have many friends, so maybe he wasn’t really attracted to her but was simply lonely.

  No, he was definitely attracted to her. She placed her fingers over her mouth to cover the involuntary smile. Tonight, during the last dance, his eyes had burned with desire. She knew that when she saw it.

  And yet he still hadn’t tried to kiss her. Mom used to say that when it came to dating, Katherine built clear glass walls around herself so that she was visible but not reachable. But if she truly did, it was only for protection. She’d been simply guarding herself until The One came along. Her face warmed. Even if she had put up walls with Sam at first, she’d pretty much smashed them down the other day after the Dairy Delite.

  And still tonight, no kiss. Not even an attempt.

  So, were they dating, or was this another of his crazy games? Her heart had no answer. She couldn’t read him.

  Whatever his intentions, his self-control was confusing, but also intriguing...very intriguing. Other men she’d dated would have kissed her on the first date—if she’d let them. Clark had.

  But Sam was different, and her feelings for him were different. In the short time she’d known him, he’d already kindled more passion within her heart than she’d ever felt toward Clark.

  She slipped out of bed and opened the closet door. Lifting the stack of notebooks in one hand, she scooted out the white box beneath them with the other and carried it to her grandmother’s old wicker rocker in the corner. This box hadn’t been opened since she and Clark had become serious.

  Snuggling down into the old chair, she set the lid aside. Images of almost fifteen-year-younger versions of her mother, her father, and herself smiled up at her. The waiter had taken the photo on the night the three of them had gone out for dinner after the Passion and Purity conference in middle school. The envelope holding the silver band bearing a small cross engraving and the signed purity pledge was under the picture.

  At the bottom of the thin box was her very first notebook—the one she’d begun at the conference. She opened it to the final page. She hadn’t looked at the list in more than a year now. Over time it had undergone several revisions, the qualities she’d desired in a husband changing as she’d matured. Nice Car, Cute, and Captain of the Football Team, now amusingly shallow, had been crossed off the list over the years, and replaced by other more important requirements. But the number one quality had been and would always remain the same—A man who knows and loves God.

  She glanced over the rest of the list. Like an illustration in an old dictionary at the library, a picture of Clark should have been sketched beside the numbered entries.

  After all those years of praying for The One, Clark had walked into her singles’ Bible study and her life. The attraction had been immediate. The better she’d gotten to know him, the more she realized he had all the qualities on the list. God had finally answered her prayer. Clark was The One.

  She’d surely thought so. But then when he’d asked her to marry him, she hadn’t been able to commit to him. Although he possessed every quality on her list, the thought of spending the rest of her life with him in a relationship devoid of passion left a panicky emptiness deep in her heart. She’d told herself she’d rather be alone. But that wasn’t true. She wanted to be married more than anything—just not to him.

  Tears crept into her eyes. The leaders at that conference had lied when they’d told her God would send her the man she desired if she prayed specifically and waited patiently for him. Maybe “lied” was too harsh a word, as it implied intent, and their intentions had been good. Besides, the list had worked for all of her girlfriends who had attended the conference with her. They were all married to their “Ones.” No, they hadn’t lied. The fault had to be with her and not the system.

  Katherine closed the book and placed the items back into the box. She’d kept her promise of purity to her parents, to herself, and to her Heavenly Father, but where had that gotten her? Certainly not where she thought she’d be at this time in her life.

  She reached up and wiped the tears off her cheeks. Nothing was turning out as she’d planned. Despite her desires and prayers all these years, she still hadn’t found The One. She should give up and move on with her life instead of continuing to believe in some Cinderella-like fantasy that would never come true for her.

  But she couldn’t yet, because of this one not-so-little, confusing thing...Sam.

  She hadn’t turned down Clark’s proposal because she’d wanted to pursue another relationship. She’d needed some time apart to think, and the loss of her job along with Dad’s extended business trip had been good reasons to come home...to escape until she could get her thoughts together. And now Sam was complicating everything.

  She’d never before felt passion such as Sam stirred within her. But while he possessed some of the qualities on the list, he lacked the most important one. She couldn’t say he knew God. And the only thing worse than a passionless relationship would be a Godless one.

  So, no more obsessing about why he hadn’t kissed her. His reasons no longer mattered because they’d never be more than friends, if one could even call them that. Once his knee was healed, he’d go back to his life in London, and hopefully by then she’d go back to Dallas. And that would be that.

  ~*~

  Sam pulled his car into the garage behind Ginny’s house and turned off the ignition. Closing his eyes, he pressed his head back against the headrest. He couldn’t keep this up much longer. Not pulling Katherine into his arms and kissing her was more difficult every time they were together.

  Their Two-Stepping tonight was much better than the last time they’d danced together at The Cantina. All the money spent on their evening with Juanita had been worth every penny. That night at the Cattlemen’s Hotel was the most expensive date he’d ever had. Yet, for those hours with Beth, Katherine...whoever she was...he would have paid double or triple—shoot, maybe even ten times—as much.

  Tonight, when the band had begun their last
song, a slow dance, she hadn’t even paused. She, not he, had closed the gap between them and then rested her head on his shoulder. As his arms had tightened around her, everyone else had disappeared, and they were alone. A couple of times he’d been jerked back to reality when they’d almost bumped into other couples.

  He sat up and pulled his key out of the ignition. He couldn’t stand that fancy keyless stuff. The silver band threaded onto the keyring reflected the moonlight. His parents had given the purity ring to him after that conference in middle school when he’d promised them he’d wait until after marriage. Purity...what a joke. That commitment had been willingly broken countless times with often nameless women between then and now. Or at least until about a year ago when he’d finally begun to realize how much of his life he’d wasted.

  Katherine was the first woman he’d dated since college who hadn’t thrown herself at him. All the partying, all the women, had failed to quench the yearnings deep in his soul. They’d given him nothing and had taken away the one thing he should have saved for his wife.

  He couldn’t change the past. Those mistakes were already made. He could only change his decisions in the present and thus the direction of his future. The old purity ring on the key chain was a physical reminder of the recommitment he’d made to himself, his future wife, and to God—if God would even have him back.

  His life in the UK came with certain expectations—all of which he’d lived up to, unfortunately. Everything the world said would bring him happiness and contentment had only left him empty, craving for something he hadn’t been able to find there.

  But here, in Crescent Bluff, there were no expectations. That was one reason he’d pushed to spend his rehab time here, where no one really knew him anymore.

  The other reasons? He’d needed to return to the last place he could remember life having any purpose beyond himself.