by Arlene James
She chuckled and gave it up. “Okay, then.”
They walked a little farther before she brought up something else that had been on her mind. This weekend had been fleeting, and perhaps any time they managed to spend together would be, but she could not bear the thought of never seeing him again. She’d mourned when he’d gone away before, and perhaps she would mourn like that again. Nothing had been settled between them, and perhaps nothing ever would be, but she just couldn’t let him go without knowing when she’d see him again.
“I’d like you to come for Thanksgiving.”
He stopped, and so did she, turning to face him. His hands skimmed down the length of her arms. “I’d be delighted.”
She dipped her head, more pleased than she probably should have been. Nothing about this situation had changed, after all. Heartbreak undoubtedly waited down the road, but Thanksgiving would be sweet.
“I realize it means driving up here two weeks in a row.”
“That’s true,” he agreed lightly. “Maybe I deserve some consideration for that.”
She laughed. “Like what?”
Cupping her face in his hands, he tilted her face up to his. “I want you to pray about us.”
“Us?” she echoed weakly, her heart thunking.
He put his forehead to hers. “Charlotte, you have to know by now how I feel about you.”
She caught her breath, heart pounding, and whispered, “The same way I feel about you, I imagine.”
Smiling, he laid his nose alongside hers and nuzzled. “If you promise to pray about us, then I know you’ll be thinking about us.”
“You didn’t even have to ask,” she told him, slipping her arms around his neck and laying her cheek against his chest, “but I’m glad you did.”
He hugged her close. Then they turned together and walked to his car. She felt pleased and apprehensive at the same time. Oh, how could this possibly work? Nothing had changed, nothing.
“I’ll be back late on Wednesday,” he told her, “so don’t rent out my room.”
“I wouldn’t give up a sure deal,” she teased.
He’d insisted on paying the room rent for this weekend even though no one had expected it. She had no doubt that he’d insist on paying again over Thanksgiving. Tyler Aldrich was a better man, she suspected, than he knew.
Again, she wondered about his spiritual state, dismayed to realize that she’d left it until too late. She’d been so concerned about what seemed to be happening between them that she’d let more important matters slide. Ashamed, she bowed her head.
He placed a kiss in the center of her forehead and got into the car. “See you on Wednesday.”
When he turned out onto the highway moments later, she lifted a hand in farewell.
“I’ll be waiting,” she whispered, and this time she wouldn’t let her silly heart obscure what was most important.
Chapter Fourteen
“Frankly, Mother, I never imagined you’d care where I spent Thanksgiving,” Tyler said, crossing his legs and adjusting the drape of his slacks over his knee.
He hadn’t been surprised when his mother, Amanda, had shown up in his office that afternoon on the day before Thanksgiving. She often came around with some complaint or other. The only surprising thing about it had been the complaint itself, so surprising that he hadn’t known quite how to react at first. After a moment, he’d calmly walked her over to the sofa in the seating area of his expansive office and sat down beside her.
“Of course I care!” she exclaimed, but her gaze wandered away from his.
Her pale blue eyes, so like his and Cassandra’s, reflected hurt, as they often did, but also something else. Guilt? Dishonesty? He couldn’t be sure; he frequently found her difficult to read.
“You never said anything about us getting together for Thanksgiving,” he pointed out.
“We’re family,” she insisted. “Thanksgiving is a family holiday.”
“But we’ve spent many Thanksgivings apart.” More, probably, than they’d spent together, although he didn’t say so.
Even when he’d been a boy, his parents had been more apt to celebrate the holidays away than at home, often apart from each other as well as their children.
“Well, yes.” She lifted her elegant, manicured hands and tilted her neat, platinum head quizzically. “But only when business or important people intervened.”
So that was it. She wouldn’t mind if the invitation had come from a business associate or someone she considered her social equal, but to her the Jefford family were nobodies.
Tyler sighed. “The Jeffords are very important people to me, Mother.”
“That’s impossible!” she scoffed, looking away.
Tyler relaxed against the tan suede upholstery and studied her. Slender and petite, her short, pale hair styled fashionably about her tastefully made-up face, Amanda Aldrich looked a good deal younger than her sixty-one years. Then again, she’d had a number of very expensive cosmetic surgeries to make certain of it.
“I assume you’ve been speaking to Cassandra about this.”
Amanda glanced his way and lifted her chin. “She’s right, you know. These people are no one.”
“If that’s so,” Tyler said gently, getting to his feet, “then I want to be no one, too.” Moving toward the door, he ignored Amanda’s gasp. “You’ll have to excuse me now. I have an appointment. Have a happy holiday, Mother.”
Her face appeared stony when he looked back, but something about it gave him pause. Despite his simmering anger, he reached for kindness “I’m sorry, Mother, but I’ve already accepted the invitation. We can talk again on Monday, if you like.”
“I could understand if it was business,” she retorted, folding her arms.
“Yes,” he said sadly, “I’m sure you could.”
The hour approached nine o’clock on that Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving when Ty parked the sports car in what he’d come to think of as its cubby hole next to what he’d come to think of as his room at the Heavenly Arms Motel. Leaving his bag in the trunk, he slipped his hands into his coat pockets and walked across the pavement to the lobby door.
For once, it appeared that his arrival had gone unnoticed, probably because he hadn’t stopped beneath the drive-through. This gave him the opportunity to pause for a moment and study those on the other side of the window. Hap, Holt, Grover and Justus sat around the dominoes table, laughing and talking as Justus “shook” the playing tiles by stirring them with his hands. They looked so happy, these people.
Tyler thought of his mother and how unhappy she’d looked when he’d left her. He wondered if his family had ever been happy. The Jeffords and their friends had all had their share of heartache and grief and little else, yet they had joy.
He’d tasted some of that himself, but only enough to show him how bereft his life really was, and he wanted more. He wanted what the Jeffords and their friends had, and he knew that it started with their faith.
On his last visit Hap had given him a number of Bible verses to read, and Tyler had done so dutifully and repeatedly. He’d even gone out and bought a different translation of the Bible in hopes of better understanding what he read, but he still had questions. He meant to settle this grace thing in his mind before he did anything else.
Going inside, he smiled at the immediate eruption of greeting.
“Ty! ’Bout time you got here.”
“Come join us.”
“Yeah, Grover’s gotta get home,” Justus teased. “’Sides, I’d rather have you for a partner. When I lose I can blame it on you.” Ty and everyone else laughed at that.
“Charlotte just went into the kitchen,” Holt said at the same time that Grover got to his feet.
Ty held up a stalling hand. “Could you hold on a minute, pastor? I’ve got something on my mind.”
“Why, sure.” Grover sat down again, and Ty moved around to pull out the chair that Charlotte must have used to observe the game. “How can I help you?�
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Ty shrugged out of his tan cashmere coat, draping it haphazardly over the back of the chair before he sat down, placing his hands on the table. “I always thought I was a Christian because I’m a member of a church,” he began, noticing the way they exchanged glances around the table, “but I’ve come to see that it takes more than that. I’m just not sure what.”
He saw the way Hap’s arm slid across Holt’s shoulders, recognizing the satisfaction in the gesture. He realized that these men had been praying for this very thing. They’d known something was lacking in him, and they’d quietly taken the problem to God. He felt a stillness inside himself and a surge of affection.
“Tell you what,” Grover said, shifting closer. “What do you say I ask you a few questions? Then you can pray as you feel led. All right?”
“All right.”
“Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe that He lived a sinless life on this earth?”
“I hadn’t thought about it, really, but if He’s the Son of God, then He must have.”
Grover nodded. “And do you realize that He went to the cross blameless, laying down his life to pay the sin price for our sins?”
Tyler gulped. Our sins. “My sins, you mean.”
He thought of all the angry things he’d said to his brother and sister and parents over the years. He thought of the callousness with which he’d often tended to business and the special treatment he’d expected, so many things he’d done wrong that they suddenly frightened him.
“Yours, mine, everyone’s,” Hap clarified. “He died for the sins of the whole world.”
“Why would He do that?” Tyler wanted to know, understanding suddenly that this one issue lay at the bottom of his confusion.
“Because He loves us,” Holt answered. “Think about it. Wouldn’t you give up your life for those you love? If they were in danger of eternal peril, wouldn’t you say, ‘Take me instead’?”
Tyler immediately thought of Charlotte. And Hap and Holt and Ryan, too. Surprisingly, he also thought of Cassandra and Amanda and Preston. Even Justus and Grover and Teddy. When he really thought about it, he knew that he’d take that step for them and others who came to mind. He’d never thought about someone else doing that for him, though.
Gratitude flooded him, and he seemed to have something in his throat, something he couldn’t swallow away. “But I don’t deserve it,” he said.
“That’s grace,” Hap told him, “giving what isn’t deserved.”
Suddenly it all came clear.
“Do you know what it means to repent?” Grover asked, and Tyler shook his head. Grover briefly explained, “It means to recognize and turn away from, in other words stop doing, those things that displease God. Once you’ve made that decision, you need only ask for forgiveness.”
“Then you never have to live apart from God again,” Justus told him gruffly.
“Doesn’t mean you won’t mess up,” Hap warned, “or have problems.”
“Just that you’ll be living in the grace of salvation,” Grover said.
“And the power of the Holy Spirit,” Holt added.
“And just asking begins that?” Ty said.
“Pretty much,” Grover assured him. “It is a beginning of sorts, a new beginning.”
Ty sucked in a deep breath and bowed his head. A moment later, he felt Hap take his right hand and instinctively offered Justus his left. He stilled his mind, and then he began to pray.
Charlotte gingerly pulled apart the paper bag that she’d just taken from the microwave and dumped the popcorn into a large green plastic bowl. She glanced at the clock, saw that the hour had just gone nine and wondered when Ty would arrive.
The counter behind her fairly groaned with covered dishes awaiting the food that currently stuffed the refrigerator, including the turkey, which sat ready for the oven. She’d have to be up early in order to get it in on time, but she wouldn’t go to bed until Ty had come. She felt too excited to sleep, anyway. Nothing she could tell herself seemed to make any difference, a fact she found somewhat frightening.
She took up the bowl and headed back to the front room, tossing a couple of fluffy pieces of popcorn into her mouth and munching. She stepped through the apartment door, instantly aware of an odd stillness in the front room. For a moment, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. The men sat with their heads bent over the table, but they were not, she came to realize, studying their domino hands. They were holding hands.
She heard a familiar voice say, “Forgive me for all that. I’ll do better with Your help.”
Ty!
“And thank You for going to the cross for me,” he went on. “Thank You for loving me. I never want to live apart from You again, Lord.”
The bowl slipped away and hit the floor, no doubt because she’d covered her mouth with both hands to prevent herself from crying out and disturbing the prayer. She didn’t hear another word that he said, but after a few moments, everyone lifted their heads and looked at her.
Tyler calmly swiveled on the hard seat of his chair, got up and came to her, a tender smile on his face. He cupped her cheek in one hand, then went down on his haunches and started sweeping up popcorn. She looked to the others in the room. Grover beamed ear-to-ear, while tears stood in Hap’s eyes.
She burbled laughter and dropped down to her knees to help Ty gather up the spilled popcorn. “Sorry,” she told the others. “I’ll make some more.”
Someone replied, several someones perhaps, but the sounds didn’t register as words. With the popcorn back in the bowl, they pushed up to their feet. Holding the bowl by the brim with one hand, Ty reached for her hand with the other and led her back into the apartment and toward the kitchen.
“I didn’t know you were here,” she said quietly, sniffing.
“I only arrived a few minutes ago.”
“It doesn’t take long,” she told him, “to give your heart to Jesus.”
He chuckled at that. “Oh, I don’t know. It took me weeks. Years, really, when you think about it.”
She laughed giddily, and he squeezed her hand.
When they reached the kitchen, she dumped the popcorn in the trash. He lifted a dish towel and peeked beneath it at the cherry and pecan pies she’d baked that day. The aroma of freshly prepared dressing still filled the air. Pressing a hand to his flat stomach, Ty smiled.
“Smells wonderful, especially since I skipped dinner to get here sooner.”
Delight shimmered through Charlotte. Quickly she turned toward the refrigerator. She would not taint this pure moment of joy by wishing for more than she knew was possible. “Let me fix something.”
“No, you don’t have to do that. Won’t hurt me to go without, the night before the feast.”
“A sandwich, at least,” she insisted, taking the makings from the refrigerator.
He relented. “That would be great, thank you.”
She slapped together the sandwich, all the time silently rejoicing for the prayer she had overheard. When she finished, she carried the plate to the dining table. He sat, and she hurried back to the kitchen to pour a glass of unsweetened iced tea. When she returned, she found him once more with his head bowed, but he looked up quickly, smiled and picked up the sandwich.
“Won’t you sit with me?”
She pulled out a chair and watched him bite into the sandwich. “I know you’re used to much finer fare,” she began, but he reached out a hand and grasped her wrist, bringing her words and thoughts to an abrupt halt.
“Charlotte,” he said, after swallowing, “some of the finest meals I’ve ever eaten have been right here at this table. Besides, I’d rather sit here eating a bologna sandwich with you than filets mignons with anyone else.”
She looked down, warmth spreading through her. “That’s a very sweet thing to say.”
“Just the truth.”
Blinking back tears, she let him eat in peace for a few minutes while
she searched her heart. She’d been telling herself that God could not mean Tyler for her, and one of the facts upon which she’d based that conclusion had to do with his spiritual ambiguity. She just couldn’t be sure that Ty truly shared her beliefs.
During these past few days, she’d prayed and prayed, as Ty had asked her to. Over and over again, she’d asked God to show her His will and she’d listed the reasons why she and Tyler could not have a future. Now she just didn’t know what to think.
She couldn’t deny that she cared for Tyler more than she’d ever expected to or that she missed him deeply when he was not with her. Still, they lived in different worlds. Didn’t they?
Or did she just not want to leave her own personal comfort zone? If so, what did that say about her faith?
But no, she had to consider her family and their needs.
Shifting to the edge of her seat, she asked, “Can we talk about what just happened in there?”
His lips curled upward. “I’d be delighted to.”
They talked for a long while.
“I really thought that joining a church was the same thing as being a Christian,” he said at one point, “but after I got to know you and your family, I realized I’d missed something.”
Charlotte had no doubt that Tyler had wholeheartedly turned his life and heart over to Jesus now, and her joy at that knew no bounds, but then he said something that deflated her a bit.
“I can’t wait to get back to Dallas and talk to my pastor now. I guess I wasn’t comfortable going to him with this because I just didn’t know what to ask him. Besides, he knows all of my family and many of our friends, and I guess that was part of it, too. I have to say that he’s been pretty glad to see me hanging around the church lately. He’s even spoken to me about serving on a committee with one of the church ministries.”
Charlotte smiled, but inwardly she sighed. How could they possibly have a future together if he was meant to serve God in Dallas, and she was meant to be here for her family? When she thought about being with him, making a life with him, she knew she wanted that. But fitting into his world seemed…impossible…frightening, even.
