He didn’t respond, and for a moment she wondered if he’d fallen asleep. But when he spoke again, his voice was rough.
“I’ve prayed more about Matt than I ever prayed for Anna. I loved my wife. Loved her a lot. But maybe my capacity for love is bigger now. Like a field where you get an average harvest one year and twice that the next. Same field, different conditions.”
“If your capacity for love has grown, so has your capacity for faith. You have a lot stronger faith than you know, Cole. Just use it.”
He gazed at her. She grew uncomfortable, aware of his strong fingers still wrapped around hers. Driving one-handed all this time hadn’t been difficult. The road was straight, and the land barely rose toward Albuquerque. But alone with Cole in the darkness, feeling his warmth against her bare skin, Jill knew a sensation she hadn’t ever felt. She wanted this man. What would it be like to feel his powerful arms around her, to know the touch of his lips against hers, to revel in the intimacy of his presence? Her desire to slip her fingers through his hair and comb out the bits of grass and twigs made her ache inside. How would it feel to run her hands around the hardened muscle of his shoulders? What would it be like to hear him whisper in her ear?
Jill stared at the short strip of highway illuminated by her headlights. Grounded in reason and educated to admire mathematics and technology, she tried her best to shake off this whirlwind of irrational desire. God had put her and Cole together for one purpose only. They were to join forces in search of Matt. That’s all. Cole belonged to another woman. He planned to marry Penny Ames, and Jill had absolutely no right to think of him in any way but as a colleague. A friend. A Christian brother.
There. That was it. She would see him as a brother in Christ. Like the men in her singles’ Bible study at church.
“Jill, I’ve never met a woman like you,” Cole said into the darkness. His voice was just above a whisper. “I know I said some crazy things the other night when I was drugged up. Singing and all that. But I do remember what I said to you. It came from someplace real. I do…I have come to care about you.”
She realized she hadn’t breathed for almost a minute. Obviously, she wasn’t hearing him right. He was telling her things, but she was interpreting his words as something different from what he meant. Or not. Or whatever. The main thing was that she had to take in air, and she had to come up with intelligent, logical things to say. Spiritual-sounding things. He was her Christian brother, that’s all.
“Well, I care about you, too, of course, as a very good friend,” she fumbled, forcing her voice to sound light and cheery. “I mean, look at all we’ve been through. This has been so crazy.” She slipped her hand out of his on the pretense of needing to run her windshield washer. “Wow, that’s dusty. Amazing how much dust blows through Artesia in the spring. So I hope Penny didn’t run into those Agrimax men. I guess she’ll be all right.”
“Yeah, she…I probably ought to try to reach her.”
“You can use my phone. Here.”
He held the cell phone in his injured hand and pressed his fiancée’s number with his good fingers. Jill noted she was breathing again. This was better. He would reconnect with Penny, and their love for each other would be so obvious that Jill would be forced to stop misinterpreting his words. Soon he would marry Penny, and Jill would go back to teaching her kids, growing her garden and making mission trips. That’s how it had been, and how it would be again. Absolutely.
“Penny?” Cole said into the phone. “Hey, it’s me.”
Jill fiddled with the vent lever, letting in the night air. Apparently Penny had a lot to say. Cole was quiet a long time, his breath warming her cell phone.
“I’m sorry.” His voice sounded so tired. “Yeah, I had to take off in a hurry…. Listen, don’t talk to anyone around there, Penny. Don’t even stay around my house. You need to just turn around and—”
He fell silent again, listening. Jill tried to remember how it felt to be romantically involved with someone. Good, she thought. At least entertaining. Some of the time. Movies, dinner, football games. Arguments, though. Differences, disagreements, disappointments. She suspected all relationships were like that, even marriages.
“I could not stay at the house,” Cole said, his voice harder now. “I had to run, Penny. I barely got away. Dangerous people are after my son, and I’m—”
Jill reflected on how she had felt when Cole was holding her hand a moment ago. That had been new. Heart-stopping. Spine-tingling. She wondered if he knew that sensation when he was with Penny. If so, he shouldn’t be saying he cared about Jill. It wasn’t right. Not unless he meant it in a generic sort of way.
“I realize you just made a five-hour drive, Penny.” He was speaking more gently now. “I’m not going to be at the house for several days…. I can’t tell you where I’m going—Because—”
Jill thought about turning on the radio. She felt like a Peeping Tom, listening in on his conversation.
“All right.” He rolled down the window and let the breeze blow through his hair. Then he rubbed his eyes, still speaking to his fiancée. “Jill Pruitt is driving me to the airport…because she was there. Penny, please don’t read into this. Don’t get this way. You can’t—All right. Yes…I understand. I do.”
He nodded a couple of times as Jill switched on the radio and tried to find a signal. How odd to think that Penny was envious of her presence in Cole’s life—especially when she’d done nothing but be available to give him a ride.
“Me, too,” he said. “Yes, I know. I do, too. I need that…. Okay.”
He pressed the button and set the phone on the car seat. Jill located an oldies station and turned the volume up a little. Maybe some bebop-a-loo music would make her feel lighthearted and goofy. She couldn’t allow herself to care about Cole Strong and Penny Ames. They belonged to each other, and she was on her own. Single and happy. Yeah-yeah-yeah.
“Penny okay?” she asked.
“Fine.”
“That’s good.” She yawned. “Wow, I’m tired. I need caffeine or a few ice cubes down the back. We’ll stop in Vaughn and get something to drink. I need gas anyway.”
“Let me take the wheel, Jill. The Advil ought to kick in, and I’ll feel better soon. Besides, you made a long drive last night, and I slept most of the way.”
“Are you sure? You look like you’re in a lot of pain.”
“I’ll be all right. I want to do this, Jill.”
She slowed and pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. Relieved, she stepped out of the car and walked around the back. There were no other vehicles in sight, and she would doze for a few hours before they hit Albuquerque. She watched Cole unfold himself from the passenger side.
He stood tall before her, the only light coming from his open door. Pausing, she heard her breath catch in the back of her throat. He reached out and touched her shoulder. She swallowed. It was time to think of something light to say. He was her Christian brother, Christian brother….
“Jill,” he began, running his hand down her arm. “I know you think I’m a stubborn mule. A dried-up stump of a man.”
“No, Cole.” She shivered, though there wasn’t a wisp of cool air. “That was before. I didn’t know you when I said those things. Now I see that you’re a caring…wonderful…father to Matt.”
His hand closed around her arm, and he pulled her closer. “Jill, I’m not just a father. I’m not just a rancher.” His hand slipped behind her back and urged her so close she could feel his breath. “I’m a man, Jill. And I’ve tried a lot of ways to think of you as anything but a woman who is beautiful and good and perfect.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are,” he said, and just as she had hoped and feared, he bent his head and brushed his mouth across her lips. A gentle kiss, barely a touch.
“Oh, Cole,” she murmured.
“Sometimes it seems like you’re all I can see anymore, Jill. When I was lying in that mangled car. When I was riding my horse lik
e a maniac down Catclaw Draw. It was your face that kept me going. You, Jill. Your crazy hair, your bright eyes, your pretty smile.”
He kissed her again, this time longer. She let herself be drawn into his arms, and he wasn’t her Christian brother or Matt’s father or an unfeeling rancher anymore. He was an amazing, disturbing and potent man who crushed her close and woke every hidden flicker of desire inside her heart.
“Cole, I—” She let her eyelids drop shut as his mouth caressed hers and his embrace cradled her.
“Listen, Jill, there’s a lot to be said between us. And we’ve got time.” He stepped back. “I’ll drive and you rest awhile. Then we’ll talk.”
“But, Cole, you have to hear me right now. I don’t feel right about this. About what’s happening here. This isn’t how it should be.”
“I know. And we’ll talk.”
“I can say it right now. I’m…I’m a teacher, and I have a whole life that really needs to be solitary, you know? And you. You’re marrying Penny. She loves you. She told me that, so you can’t be kissing me out here in the middle of the desert.”
The shrill beep of her cell phone intruded. Jill reached for the car door. “I’ve got to get that. It might be Matt.”
Cole walked to the driver’s side as she slipped into the car and pressed the button.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Penny said into Jill’s ear. “I was upset and hurt that you left the house without me, but I’ve thought it all through, and I understand that you did what you had to do. I love you, Cole. Please say you love me, too. Please say you’ll forgive me, and we can start over on the right foot. I can’t bear the thought of life without you, not even for a minute.”
Jill handed Cole the phone. “It’s for you.”
She turned up the music and closed her eyes. Cole shouldn’t have kissed her, and she shouldn’t have welcomed it. What she had felt in his arms was wrong. No matter how he had acted, no matter what he had said, it was wrong. He had made a commitment to Penny, and that had to be honored. She concentrated on the radio…one of her favorites—“Song sung blue, weeping like a willow…song sung blue, sleeping on my pillow…”
FOURTEEN
“Nothing here is safe.” Clotilde Loiseau’s brown eyes were fixed on Matt, who sat facing her inside the small charter airplane. “The people have AIDS, tuberculosis, leprosy, oui? The animals, they are wild. They will eat you. Everything is hungry in Africa, even insects. Here is the home of the tsetse fly. Here mosquitoes bring West Nile virus and malaria. Snakes are many in this country. Some, if they bite, you will die before you take three steps.
Matt clung to the armrests on either side of his seat and hoped he could survive the flight itself. He’d been nauseous ever since they left Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Billy was worse. He’d used three barf bags already. Now he lay spread-eagle in the aisle, moaning and begging Mrs. Loiseau to make the pilot land. Who cared about snakes and mosquitoes when the entire contents of your stomach were threatening to come flying out of your mouth at any moment?
“We shall arrive at the safari camp in one hour,” Mrs. Loiseau said, lighting her umpteenth cigarette of the flight. “From there, I shall put you into the hands of Moses. A good guide. He will take you by boat up the Nile River toward Sudan. Ha—funny, you see? Moses in the Nile, like in the Bible.”
Matt tried to smile. He couldn’t grasp that any of this was really happening to him. Not the plane or the Frenchwoman or even Billy. None of it. It was like some kind of a movie where nothing was what you thought, nobody did what they were supposed to do, everything was warped and strange and unbelievable.
“Before you arrive at the border,” Mrs. Loiseau was saying, “Moses will take you by Land Rover to a secret crossing point. But he will not cross over with you. You will have to drive into Sudan alone. Do you understand this, Matthew?”
Matt understood one thing: if he could look into a mirror, his face would be green. The color of lettuce. His hands trembled, and he could barely breathe. It wasn’t just the cigarette smoke. The whole cabin felt like the inside of an oven. Didn’t they have air-conditioning? Didn’t they know people were suffocating inside this miserable little tin can?
“Matthew? Do you listen to me?” Mrs. Loiseau tapped his shin with the sharp toe of her high-heel shoe. “Pay attention!”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, swallowing the warm saline liquid that seeped into his mouth. “Moses. The Nile. Land Rover. Sudan.”
“You will be alone,” she continued. “You must be careful! Everything in this country is dangerous. The people will be nice in your face, but they will hate you. They will try to rob you and take you as a hostage. You will not be safe, Matthew.”
“Okay.” He nodded, clutching the barf bag in his hands and wondering if he was going to need to use it.
Mrs. Loiseau shook her head in obvious disgust at his lame response to all her warnings. Matt couldn’t figure out why this Frenchwoman had done so much for him. She thought he was foolish and too young and destined to die a horrible death—and she told him so on a regular basis.
Even so, ever since yesterday morning, when she had rescued him from Agrimax, Mrs. Loiseau had done everything in her power to help Matt find Josiah Karume. For some reason, she believed his idea of giving the USB key to I-FEED was a good one, and she had decided to make it happen. She had driven Matt and Billy to her sister’s house outside Paris, where they spent that night. Her husband, whom Matt never saw, ordered his private jet to fly the three of them to Uganda the next morning.
In Kampala, Mrs. Loiseau told the customs officials they didn’t need visas, because they were going on a very short safari up the Nile—which was true. To ease matters along, she handed out American dollars left and right, explaining to Matt and Billy that these were like gold on the local black market. After clearing customs, they got into this propeller-driven, roller-coaster airplane, and now they were headed for a safari camp on the river.
It was like a theme park in California or Florida, where you went on heart-stopping rides, saw strange and frightening things, and thought you might never escape. Then, when it all became too intense, you got back on the bus, went to your hotel, ate ice cream, and everything was normal. Except none of this was normal, and none of it was pretend.
Everything happening was real, and Matt could hardly believe that it had actually worked out. He knew it must be God’s hand behind the whole thing. Mrs. Loiseau really was like an angel the Lord had sent to help out—though if the rest of the angel band were anything like her, Heaven would be a pretty weird place.
“Crocodiles!” she exclaimed, waving her red fingernails around. “In the Nile River are many crocodiles, and they will attack if you fall from the boat. But the hippos are worse!”
Matt tried to get his brain to focus on what she was saying, but it was difficult. “Uh, Mrs. Loiseau—”
“Madame Loiseau,” she corrected as the plane made another stomach-churning lurch. “I am French—can you not remember this? Je suis français. Qu-est-ce que c’est? What do you wish to say to me, Matthew?”
“Well, um…about the crocodiles and all that. Don’t worry so much, okay? I mean, God brought you to that café to help Billy and me yesterday. I wouldn’t have escaped from those Agrimax men without you. And you took care of getting us here to Africa. I never had any idea how hard it would be to fly into a foreign country. The way you’ve helped us with everything reminds me that God is watching over us, and I think we’re going to get the USB key to Mr. Karume.”
“Not everything,” she said in words hardened with anger. “I do not help you with everything, Matthew. When we arrive at the camp, I leave you to go by yourself. I do not protect you. It is because…because I am weak. Myself, I am afraid.”
“You?”
“Of course me! Who is talking to you—somebody else?” She jammed her cigarette butt into the metal ashtray in the arm of the seat. “We have been to this camp once—my husband and I. It is very nice, oui? Little ca
banas for each guest. Delicious food. A boat ride up the Nile. Some fishing. Looking at animals. Tourist things—and always an armed guard to protect us. We have a good time. But you…it will not be like this for you. You must go into the desert. You will have no security, no safety. Sudan is a place of armies and machine guns. I cannot go there, Matthew. I let you go alone. By yourself.”
He wasn’t sure who she was mad at, but she stared out the window as though she really wished she could knock someone’s block off. “Well, I’m not by myself—”
“Don’t tell me God is with you! God does not always protect the innocent.”
To Matt’s surprise, she started crying. She reached into her fancy designer purse and pulled out a handkerchief. Dabbing her eyes, she fumbled around for another cigarette. Before she could light it, he reached across and put his hand on her arm.
“Mrs. Loiseau,” he said. “I mean, Madame Loiseau, the thing is—I’m not really afraid.”
“No, because you are young and foolish. You do not understand how fragile is this life. How quickly it can be taken away.” She blew her nose into her handkerchief.
“Yeah, but I’m not all that worried about my life, you know?” He wondered why she was crying and whether the things he was saying might make it worse. Despite his roiling stomach, he decided to keep talking. “See, life is like a tiny speck of time,” he told her, “but Heaven is forever. My youth pastor says if you’re a Christian, your real home is Heaven. Not earth. Earth is where you’re sent for a while to try to help other people get to know Jesus. Earth is where you do things for God, like feeding the hungry and stuff—which puts treasures in your bank in Heaven. You want your treasures to be in Heaven, because that’s where you’re going to live forever after you die. But life down here is really not all that big a deal.”
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