A Match Made in Texas

by Arlene James

  It sounded oddly like an accusation.

  “Yeah,” Stephen admitted, his patience beginning to fray. “What’s wrong with that?”

  The feisty right-winger of the Blades chose that moment to take exception to a cheap shot by an opposition defense-man and dropped his gloves.

  “Why’d he do that?” Magnolia asked, pointing to the TV as the two skaters warily circled each other. Abruptly, the players erupted into roundhouse punches.

  “Fighting with the gloves on will get you fined,” Stephen muttered. “They’re hard to protect the hands from flying pucks, so they do too much damage in a scuffle.”

  “It’s all right to fight like this?” Hubner demanded.

  “They’ll both be penalized,” Stephen said offhandedly, “but sometimes it’s necessary.”

  “Necessary!”

  “The refs can’t be everywhere, see everything. Sometimes the only way to stop something is to let the other team know you’re not going to take it anymore.”

  “It’s pointless, barbaric violence!” Hub pronounced. “I’ve seen enough.”

  Every head in the room turned to watch him stomp away. He was well out of sight when he bellowed, “Kaylie!”

  Moaning, she closed her eyes, but then she rose and hurried after him. At the door, she paused to stammer thanks for the dinner. Then her troubled gaze met Stephen’s and she mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”

  He could only shake his head. She disappeared, and Stephen reluctantly turned back to the aunts.

  Hypatia sighed and lifted her chin. “I apologize, Stephen dear. My brother’s viewpoint has become increasingly narrow in the last few years.”

  Odelia shrugged and said rather sheepishly, “It is a bit shocking to old ghosts like us, this fighting. Exciting, though.”

  Magnolia just wanted to know, “Did we win?”

  Stephen glanced at the screen. The other team’s guy was bloody and headed for the locker room, while the Blades’ skater sat in the glass-walled penalty box, grinning.

  “Yeah,” Stephen said. “Looks like it.”

  “Good.” She nodded decisively.

  Less than a minute later, the Blades scored the first goal of the game, and all three aunts cheered with Stephen, though Hypatia was quick to clear her throat, lift her chin and lapse into silent dignity. Too distracted to fully enjoy the moment, Stephen kept one eye on the game and another on the door.

  There wasn’t much to see in either case. No one scored in the third period, so the game ended with the Blades winning one-zip, and still Kaylie had not returned. The sports commentators lamented the lack of action in this second round opening game, while the aunties clucked over the time and Kaylie’s continued absence. Stephen made light of it, suggesting that Chester be called to help him upstairs.

  “There’s really not much I can’t do for myself once I’m back in my room.”

  It was true. While he ached in half a dozen places, his overall pain had faded to easily manageable levels, and Kaylie had organized his meds so well that he merely had to check the times she had written on those paper cups and toss back the pills. He could pretty well dress and undress himself and lever himself on and off the bed. Managing his meals and getting around would still be a challenge, but he could always call on Aaron or Chester or hire another nurse.

  He didn’t want to do any of those things, though.

  He wanted Kaylie. That he didn’t deserve her simply did not matter. His heart wanted Kaylie Chatam.

  And he very much feared that tonight had somehow set her forever out of his reach.

  Chapter Twelve

  Kaylie argued until she was blue in the face—or rather, red—for she had never been so angry with her father. It took every bit of her self-control not to shout at him, for he was being ridiculously unfair.

  “It’s a sport like any other.”

  “Sports have their place,” Hub said, “but they’re not worthy of a grown man’s occupation.”

  “Pro sports are a business.”

  “What has that got to do with anything? There are many businesses in which I would not want to be involved.”

  “But that’s you. The world does not agree that pro sports is a bad thing.”

  “The world! Ah, yes, but we are called to stand apart from this world.”

  “Many Christians, probably most Christians, would disagree with you!”

  “Fist fighting!” Hub exclaimed, as if that alone explained his objections. “What other sport do you see that in?”

  “Football, basketball…”

  “Rarely! And never sanctioned. Why, prizefighting is less brutal.”

  “They clear the benches to fight in baseball,” Kaylie pointed out. “Soccer is infamous for brawling.”

  Hub shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t like it! I don’t like it because you lied to me, Kaylie.”

  “I did not! You never asked what—”

  “You let me think he was a broken shell, an older man, no temptation.”

  That last word rocked her because it summed up Stephen Gallow for her perfectly. Temptation. He tempted her to womanhood and affection, to laughter and kisses, to a different life than she had ever imagined and a desperate, hopeful longing. He tempted her to want more for herself than her father wanted for her, and that realization hurt on several levels. He tempted her to love him, to risk even her relationship with her father for that love. It seemed unfair for her father to throw that at her now when she had struggled so to get it right, to do the right thing for everyone, the godly thing. Perhaps she had left out some of the details, but she had done so because she had known that he would overreact. So perhaps she had already dishonored her father. And perhaps that wasn’t all her fault.

  “I think I had best go before we say things we’ll both regret,” Kaylie decided softly. “Good night, Dad.”

  “Kaylie!” he admonished, but for once she ignored him.

  She was an adult, after all, fully capable of and fully responsible for managing her own emotions. And she still had a job to do, a job she felt compelled to do. Just how to do it and honor her father, she did not know any longer. She didn’t even know what she was supposed to do, what God meant for her to do.

  The dilemma became even more confusing when she arrived at Chatam House, let herself in the side door and made her way up the stairs to find Stephen sitting on the edge of his bed in gym shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, poking around a pill cup. He looked up, seeming unsurprised to see her standing there, and lifted the little paper container, balanced on the tips of the fingers of his left hand.

  “This is right, isn’t it?”

  Nodding, she came forward and took the cup from him, dumping the pills out into his hand. Then she poured him a glass of water from the carafe on the bedside table. He swallowed the pills and set aside the glass.

  “Tired?” she asked, noting the shadows about his eyes.

  He nodded, but he didn’t lie back. Instead, he met her gaze, asking gently, “Has it all changed somehow, Kaylie? I guess I thought we had something going on, something meaningful.” He shook his head and asked, “Is that over?”

  She folded her arms, feeling chilled and a little lost. They had never spoken of any personal feelings between them, but she wouldn’t pretend that such feelings did not exist.

  “I don’t know. He’s my father, Stephen, and my faith teaches me to honor him. I have to consider his opinions, his wishes, his needs, even his fears.”

  “I don’t know what to do. I’m a hockey player, Kaylie. It’s all I have, all I am.”

  “No. No, it isn’t. There’s more to you than hockey, but I would never ask you to give up hockey just to please my father. That would be like asking you to stop being you, and I’m not sure I could bear that. Unfortunately, Scripture doesn’t say to honor your father unless he’s completely unreasonable.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to dishonor him.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t.”

  Stephen w
rinkled his brow. “Isn’t there anything I can do?”

  She tilted her head. “Pray. We can both pray.”

  Stephen nodded but was clearly unsatisfied with that answer. “It just seems like there ought to be something more I could do.” He reached out with both hands and pulled her to him, the cast on his left palm hard against her waist. “Would it help if I kissed you again?”

  “No,” she whispered, allowing her regret to imbue her voice, “that would only make it worse.”

  Gulping, he nodded and put his forehead to hers. “Prayer it is.”

  She slipped her arms around him. “It’s been known to work, you know.”

  “It’s been known not to,” he said soberly, pulling back, and then he told her about the night his cousin and best friend, Nick, died.

  “I’m that one-in-a-million Dutchman who can’t hold his liquor,” Stephen admitted wryly, doing his best to keep his resentment at bay. “We drink beer for breakfast in the Netherlands. Oh, not me. Two beers, and I’m done, useless. All my friends know, all my family. Nick used to tease me.”

  Stephen chuckled softly, hurting right down to the marrow of his bones, but he didn’t let that stop him. He told her everything, how he’d sent for Nicklas to come and keep him company in the U.S. They were like brothers, he and Nick, the siblings neither had ever had, his mother’s only sister’s only child. Just months apart in age, they had practically lived together after Hannah had taken Stephen back to the Netherlands. His aunt Lianna had been like a second mom to him, and it had been the same with Hannah and Nick. So naturally, when Stephen had called, Nicklas had come, and naturally, Nicklas had insisted that a celebration was in order when Stephen formally signed with the Blades.

  “A single beer and a glass of champagne was what I had that night,” Stephen recalled, “but Nicky, he was tossing them back so fast. We didn’t stay long. I preferred to be driving my new car. All that horsepower, all that flash…”

  He shook his head and told her what he remembered of the accident, how they’d been fooling around at night on a vacant street in a newly platted neighborhood when a cement truck had suddenly appeared. Stephen had swerved his car out of the way and hit a curb. The car had tumbled downhill over and over until it came to rest on the passenger side, leaving Stephen hanging by the straps of his safety belt above a crumpled and torn Nick.

  “I begged,” Stephen admitted, closing his eyes. “I begged God not to let him be dead. I begged not to have killed him.”

  His neck felt stiff, and he rotated his head, trying to loosen the muscles and banish the memories. That was what he’d walked away from the wreck with, a few strained muscles. Nick had died, and he’d had a stiff neck.

  He’d been a madman at the site, fighting the emergency personnel, first when they’d tried to treat him and then when they’d taken Nick away. They’d had to sedate him to get him into an ambulance. As a result, there’d been no alcohol test, but the cops had witnesses who’d seen him drinking at the club. Not that it had mattered. Stephen had pled guilty in open court, expecting, almost hoping, for a prison sentence. They’d given him probation, and the team had written a good-conduct rider into his contract.

  “So I skate. And Nick’s gone,” Stephen said, hating the forlorn sound of his own voice. “And I haven’t seen my mother, aunt or grandparents since his funeral.”

  “That’s why you don’t take your mother’s calls, isn’t it?”

  Stephen hung his head, admitting, “I just can’t talk to her without thinking of Nick, without knowing that she is thinking of her only nephew, without knowing that my aunt Lianna will never see her only child again.”

  “Was Nick wearing a seat belt?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  He shook his head. “Because that was Nick—carefree, living on the edge.”

  “If he’d worn his seat belt he might have survived. You did.”

  “I was driving,” Stephen insisted, “even though I knew I shouldn’t have been. They have to know it, too.” He closed his eyes. “I don’t deserve to have them in my life any longer.”

  “But they don’t deserve to lose you, Stephen. Don’t you see? They’ve lost Nick and you.”

  “I—I can’t face them. Nick is gone, and I can’t do anything about it. That,” he said bleakly, “is how I know prayer doesn’t always work.”

  Kaylie shook her head at him, her hands lightly framing his face. “Stephen, you can’t wait until the worst has happened then ask God to undo it.”

  “Then what’s the point?” he demanded. Her hands fell from his face to his shoulders.

  “The point of prayer is to keep us in contact with our heavenly Father, to get to know Him. You can’t live your life ignoring God and the things of God and then expect Him to offer mercy on demand,” she said. “That’s like ignoring the law, then when you’re caught, expecting the court to come to your rescue. Prayer is as much guidance as rescue, Stephen, and it starts with a personal relationship with God.”

  “I don’t understand. How do you have a personal relationship with someone you never see?”

  She folded her arms. “You just told me that you haven’t seen your mother in years and go out of your way not to communicate with her, but you still have a personal relationship with her, don’t you?”

  He shifted uncomfortably, trying to find fault with that logic. “She’s my mother.”

  “And God is your creator.”

  Stephen gulped. “I—I don’t know how not to have a personal relationship with my mother, but how do I start one with my Maker?”

  “You know who Jesus is, don’t you?” she asked softly.

  “Sure.” At least, he’d thought so, until she explained it all to him.

  Stephen’s gaze turned inward as he considered all that she’d said, and then she gave him the key to his own salvation.

  “Don’t let your guilt keep you from forgiveness, Stephen. Don’t deny yourself the very peace for which Christ Jesus gave Himself on the cross.”

  They each had too much to think about. By mutual, unspoken assent, they put it all aside when together. Kaylie stole as much time as she could. With Stephen’s strength returning and his pain subsiding, she should have been able to leave him on his own more. As long as she left the sling in place on the wheelchair and positioned it properly, he could get himself from the bed and into it and even maneuver himself inch by careful inch into the sitting room. But the suite had become a prison to him, and she knew very well that he lived for the moment when she would help him down the stairs to escape the house.

  The rose arbor, accessible from the patio via a bumpy path of paving stones, became their favorite idyll. The arched trellis, weighted with frowsy, bloodred blooms, formed a fragrant tunnel and hid a padded bench inside. Dappled gold sunshine filtered through the leafy shelter, and when the breeze was right, the interior remained cool well into the afternoon. As old-fashioned as it seemed, Kaylie had taken to reading aloud to Stephen, who claimed to be absorbed by the history of explorer Joseph Walker, which she supposedly made even more compelling by her intonation.

  While they pretended that their time together was impersonal, so did her father. On a daily basis, he inquired politely, almost icily, how “the patient” fared, and on a daily basis she reported that Stephen was mending well and would soon gain more freedom of movement. That happened on the morning of the fifteenth when Chester brought out the aunts’ town car to drive Stephen and Kaylie into town. Stephen had offered to call Aaron to cart him around, but Chester and the aunts would not hear of it. The latter stood waving beneath the porte cochere as they drove away, much like a triune mother sending off a child to the first day of school. Stephen, the big tough guy on skates, waved happily in return through the rear windshield, glad to be going anywhere, even if only to the doctor’s office.

  Craig Philem greeted them like royalty, and Kaylie couldn’t help noticing that most of his approbation was aimed at Stephen this time. Considering
that he was now listed among the consulting physicians for the Blades hockey team and busily expanding his office suite to accommodate the honor, she couldn’t blame him. He did a most thorough job of x-raying Stephen’s broken bones, even those he had not set himself. Pleased, he replaced the initial post-surgery leg cast with a shorter, sturdier version that would allow walking with crutches. To facilitate that, he also shortened the cast on Stephen’s upper arm, promising to remove it in another couple of weeks.

  They walked out, more or less, side by side, with Stephen swinging lightly on his crutches. Stephen astonished both Kaylie and Chester by insisting upon going shopping.

  He bought everything that he could find to fit him at the local men’s store, including a suit, though he couldn’t even get both arms in the jacket due to the cast. While they waited for the pants to be hemmed, he ambled around the downtown square to pick out gifts for everyone in the house, settling on sunglasses, of all things.

  For Odelia he chose gaudy frames ringed in rhinestones, for Hypatia smart pearl-white. Mags wound up with military-green. Chester came away wearing an aviator style, while Hilda and Carol got classic tortoiseshell of different shapes. At Stephen’s insistence, Kaylie tried on a dozen pairs or more. In the end, he insisted on a cat-eyed copper frame that cost more than every other pair of sunglasses she’d ever owned. Stephen himself went for a wraparound style in silver with the blackest of lenses.

  As a last act of exuberant self-indulgence, he insisted on visiting the local drive-through for milk shakes, ordering one of just about every variety. Later, they all sat around the patio back at Chatam House in their fashionable shades slurping decadently and ruining their lunches, staff included. He was so happy that it hurt Kaylie to think she might actually break his heart. And her own.

  She knew what she wanted, but she waited for some sign from God to tell her what she should do.

  Stephen felt very proud of himself, at least on one score. He did not attempt to press or seduce or even charm Kaylie. Instead he learned simply to be, with and without her, no artifice or attitude or even thought, taking each moment as it came, living in hope and, oddly enough, praying. The last was harder than he’d thought it would be.