Ben couldn’t stop the smile or the admiration from coming to his face and his heart. She was truly worth considering buying. He shook out of that thought. “Thanks… thanks for coming. I know it wasn’t right of me to ask. It’s so miserable outside.”
“No, it’s okay.” She shrugged and refocused on her purse, digging in it.
The waitress returned and set his coffee in front of him. “Could I help you?”
Kathryn looked up, seeming not to realize she was being questioned. “What? Oh. Yeah. Coffee. Just coffee. Please. Thank you.” She dug for a moment more but came up empty-handed. Finally she put the purse down with a determined thwack and turned her attention to him as she laid her forearms on the table. “So what’s up?”
He was caught in the awe of her for one more second. “Oh, you know…” Putting his arm back on the booth, he tried to look cool as if they’d just run into each other in the middle of the afternoon between meetings. “Just trying to keep on keeping on. You?”
“Yeah.” She rubbed her hands together again and raked her fingers through the strands of hair that had fallen out of the ponytail. “Trying to stay warm. This rain is ridiculous.”
The waitress set her coffee in front of her, and Kathryn smiled up at her with that smile that brushed his heart.
“Thank you.”
When the waitress was gone, Ben refocused on his coffee because he truly did not know what to do next. “So, you’ve been working?”
“Oh, yeah. Not today though. Off today. And tomorrow. I’ll be back on Monday though.” She seemed stuck in talk mode. “How about you? Are you back to work yet?”
“Pushing pills,” he said, remembering Jason’s assessment of his job. “Pretty exciting stuff.”
“And your dad’s estate?” She took a sip. “That’s going okay?”
He widened his eyes and let them fall back almost closed in overwhelm and surrender. “‘Okay’ might be stretching it.” Shifting, he looked only at his coffee. “It’s kind of crazy dismantling all of it. I mean, I’ve got boxes of just stuff. Stuff he loved, stuff I remember from growing up, but I don’t know what to do with it all. It’s crazy.” He took a drink.
The frantic fidgety thing dropped from her demeanor. Suddenly, she was keenly focused only on him. “You know, a lot of families go through that. Have you considered having an estate sale, or maybe going through an auction house? I have some contacts. I could give them to you if you want.”
“Yeah.” His gaze fell. “Yeah, that would be great.” The center of his heart hurt. This was not how he’d pictured this. He didn’t want to talk about estates and funerals. He wanted to find some way to tell her that he was in love with her. The thought pushed him back into the booth. Blinking it back, he fought to figure out why he had thought something so bizarre. Love? Could it really have gone that far? They hadn’t even been on a real date.
As she watched him, still struggling so hard, Kathryn forced her nerves and feelings to stand down. He needed her—not freaking out and wondering if maybe he liked her, but Kathryn. His friend. “I guess this has all been pretty rough on you, huh? I know it can be really hard to get back into the swing of things after the death of someone close.” Counselor slogans slipped into her mind. “Don’t push yourself though. You’ve got to give it some time. You’ll be surprised how soon normal feels normal again.”
His gaze came up to hers, far more lost and sad than she had apprehended upon her arrival. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“No, Ben. Really. I’ve seen this a thousand times. The first couple of weeks are the hardest, but it gets better. It really does.”
“No. Kathryn. That’s not what I mean.”
That stopped her.
“Oh.” She sat back in the booth, more worried than stable. “What… what do you mean?”
Ben let out the breath slowly. He closed his eyes, begging God to let him out of the feelings—for her sake. But they weren’t going anywhere. Finally, he opened his eyes and picked his gaze up to hers. How could he tell her this and not sound like a complete idiot? He’d led her on and then dropped her like a rotten sack of potatoes when it was time for him to invest something of himself. Now here he was, wanting to lay his heart out but sure he was ruining her life by doing that.
“Ben.” She finally sat forward and laid her hand across to his wrist softly. “Whatever it is, just tell me. I want to help.”
If only it was that easy…
He let his gaze fall to the table for another moment, and then seeing God wasn’t going to do as he had begged, he looked back at her. However, instead of saying what he wanted to, he carefully turned his wrist over until he caught her hand in his. Surprise jumped into her eyes followed by concern. But he was already moving, and he wasn’t going to stop now. Gently, slowly, he lifted her hand to his lips. Kissing it drilled right through him all the way to the center of his being. He’d never felt anything like it. His eyes fell closed with the feeling. When he opened his eyes again, her gaze was on him, panicked and concerned.
“Ben?”
His other hand came across to feel her hand in his. It was completely unbelievable what that did to him. “I’m sorry, Kathryn.” He looked right at her. “I haven’t been honest with you. I’ve taken advantage of you without giving anything in return, and that wasn’t fair to you.”
Panicked. She looked completely and utterly panicked. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“When you first showed up, I was so grateful for you, for what you did, for how you helped me. I’d never… No one had ever done anything like that for me before.” His fingers continued to rub over hers, learning, memorizing every inch. “You were right there the whole way, and I thought that was, you know, because of your job and everything, but these last two weeks, being away from you…” He pulled his gaze to hers, vowing to be strong if she told him to get lost. “I know I have no right to say this or to ask you, and to tell you the truth, I’m probably going to tank the whole thing because I really don’t even know how to do this…”
“Ben?”
He couldn’t tell if she was scared for herself or for his sanity. He was scared enough about all of it for both of them. Finally, he looked right at her. “I just need to know. Was this all about doing your job, or is there something… more there?”
A stab of joy pierced right through her, but she yanked it back. He couldn’t be serious. Her? Why would he choose her? “Ben, I don’t… Are you serious?”
“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. I just didn’t know how to say it, and then when you walked away that day. I thought I’d have time to maybe come up with something or to you know, talk myself out of it. But I can’t do that. And the truth is, I don’t want to.”
Shell-shocked. It was a good word for how she felt. “You’re serious? You want… to like… go out or something?”
He almost laughed. “You seem surprised.”
“Shocked.”
Amused, he leaned closer. “Why?”
Tears bunched up in her eyes, stinging. “Because look at you, and look at me. You’re like wow, and I’m like blech.”
His eyebrows arched. “Blech? I’d hardly call you blech.”
She was still spinning. “But wait. I thought you didn’t want anything to do with marriage. I thought, you know the whole single thing, ‘I like being single.’ That’s what you said.” It sounded like an accusation even to her, but she was almost sure of it because that was one of the few logical parts of her that had kept her from getting her hopes up.
The flippancy fell from his face, and suddenly she knew he was serious.
“I was talking to Kelly earlier, and I was trying to tell him I wasn’t interested…”
“In Kelly?”
The laugh was back. “In you.”
She sank back. “Oh.” It was so hard following because her mind was mush.
“I was trying to tell him I wasn’t cut out for the whole marriage thing and it wasn’
t fair to you to pretend I might be.” He grew silent and thoughts flitted across his face. After a moment, his gaze came up to hers. “That’s what I always thought, that I was so much happier single. I wasn’t tied down. I could come and go as I pleased. Whatever. I didn’t have to answer to anybody. But I see now what a lie that was. All those years, I went out and partied and everything, and then I’d come home, and I was so miserable.”
She knew that feeling all too well, except for the going out part.
His gaze fell into a serene softness. “But I wasn’t lonely and miserable when you were around. Even when you weren’t right there. I would think about you, about what you were doing and stuff. I couldn’t wait to see you again… even if it was all kind of weird.”
Kathryn was holding her heart back. She’d read about this, how patients fell for their nurses because it was the first time they had been given attention. “Ben…”
“No, please, Kathryn. Let me finish.”
How could she argue?
“I know this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. I know what people will probably think. But I don’t care about any of that. All I know is that somewhere along the way I fell in love with you, and all I need to know from you is if there’s a chance for us. If you hate me and want me to get lost, I will.” He rubbed his fingers over hers once more. “It will kill me, but I will.”
Holding onto her heart, holding onto professional had seemed like such a good and noble idea. But the truth was, they were holding her back from the life with him she really, really wanted. “Okay, but I think we should probably take this slow,” she said, measuring every word and hating the wisdom in each one. What she really wanted to do was say, ‘Who cares’ and go for it. But if this was the nurse syndrome thing, she would surely get hurt worse by doing that. “After all, who knows—you may decide next week that it was all some fantasy that wasn’t even real.”
He smiled. “Not going to happen. But that’s okay about the going slow thing. If that’s what you want.”
“I just want to make sure this isn’t all built on rose-colored glasses because I helped you or something.”
Ben had no trouble agreeing because he’d already worked out that argument in his heart. “So you’re not saying no?”
How her reluctant smile could play with his insides like that, he had no idea.
“I’m not saying no.”
Ben raced around his apartment frantically trying to get ready. He had made the mistake of agreeing to go to church with her, and then she was going to come to his dad’s with him. It wasn’t a terrific first date, but evenings were out for sorting and boxing—it was just too far to drive every night, and he needed to get the house done. Sunday would be his best bet.
“Good grief. When in the world did this happen?” Ben stood at the mirror, adjusting his tie which looked all wrong. “What was I thinking? I don’t know how to do this. God, I really hope You’ve got a plan here because I’ve got no clue.”
Kathryn had tried to talk him into meeting her at church, but he wouldn’t hear of it. At nine-thirty, her doorbell rang, and she sprinted for it. Only at the door did she stop and breathe. Wrenching the doorknob, she swung the door in. “Good morning.”
“Wow.” His gaze traveled down the length of her.
“Like it?” Like a little girl, she turned slowly in front of him.
“Love it.” But his gaze said he was talking about more than the dress.
“Hang on, let me get my purse.”
He stepped in, his hands in his pockets. “I would have brought flowers, but I didn’t want to make you sick.”
She came back to the door, laughing. “Great plan. We’d better get or we’re going to be late.”
“Wouldn’t want that.”
Somehow the thought of this being their first real date surged in him again as he was opening the door of his car for her. That thought coupled with where it was they were going bowled him over. On his way around the car, he raised his eyes to Heaven. “God, listen, man, You’re going to have to do this because I’m way out of my league here.” He got in beside her. “You good?”
She smiled a mega-watt smile back at him. “Great.”
They held hands into church and all the way down the aisle. Only eight rows from the front did she stop. This church was nothing like the little chapel. For one thing, there were people. Lots of them. For another this place was huge. It was decorated in cream and white so the whole thing was bright, from the shiny floors all the way up to the cream-colored curtains flanking the wooden altar.
Although Kathryn knelt, Ben simply sat. He felt like everyone was looking right at him. Strangely, he had never felt the need for God more than at this moment. He wasn’t sure if that was because he was in church or because he was just so far out of his comfort zone, he was willing to take any help he could get. After a few minutes, she sat down next to him. Who was supposed to reach out to whom? He didn’t know. Where there rules about that here? He wished this was St. Jude’s. At least there he would’ve known Father Patrick wasn’t going to throw him out for a mistake.
Her hand rested on her leg. It was right there, and he wondered if that was a sign. Swallowing, he reached over, and in the next second her hand was once again in his. That was right. He knew it the moment the connection was made.
The service started. They stood, they sat, they stood again. It would have been dizzying had his hand not been in hers. Because it was, he knew she would guide him rightly and never let him fall. That was a nice thought. He thanked God for his angel, even if he didn’t deserve her.
“Today’s Gospel of the walk to Emmaus,” the priest said. He was older than Father Patrick, taller, thinner, and frailer. However, he spoke with that same quiet confidence Ben had noticed in Father Patrick. “There are several symbols that we miss because we do not understand the geography of that time. Emmaus wasn’t just another town. The disciples weren’t going there to get groceries. In fact, although this passage is referred to as the walk to Emmaus, there is reason to believe the disciples were doing more than just walking.
“To put it bluntly, they were running. They were high-tailing it out of Jerusalem. You see, Jesus had just been crucified—dying a horrific, very public death. They had heard the stories of His resurrection, but to them, they were just amazing stories that couldn’t be real. Now Emmaus led away from Jerusalem back to the Roman Empire. The symbolism is that they had turned their backs on Jerusalem. They had made the decision to turn away from what God had shown them, what Jesus had done and run back into the world.”
Ben shifted in the seat. Did these little talks always hit so close to home? He didn’t remember that from before.
“And then Jesus came and was walking in their midst, but they were prevented from seeing it was Him. Some scholars think this was God’s doing, but I’m not so sure. I think maybe they were prevented from seeing Who Jesus really was because they were so focused on running away from Him. Many of us do the same thing. We are so focused on the world and its trials and tribulations, that we often don’t realize Jesus is walking right there with us. And if you notice, Jesus does not stop until they ask Him to. He was going to go on, but then they asked Him to stay.
“That is hardly an irrelevant line. Jesus walks with all of us, but He will never stay where He is not invited and welcomed. Our Protestant brothers call this getting saved. Basically, it amounts to recognizing Jesus for Who He really is in our lives and asking Him to stay with us. And I don’t care if you’ve known Him for years or if you just got baptized two weeks ago, take a few moments right now to close your eyes and ask Jesus to stay with you. He will stay if you just ask. And just like at Emmaus, He will then reveal Himself plainly to you.”
The priest stepped away from the podium, and although Ben’s rational mind said this was stupid, still he bent his head. He didn’t even know the right words. God, that’s me. I’ve been running to the world. I don’t know how to do this or even the right way to say it, so pl
ease hear what I mean even if I don’t say it right. Please stay with me. Please. I’m tired of running. I’m tired of feeling so empty. Please show me how to get back to You. Please.
On his hand, Kathryn squeezed, and when he looked at her, he knew God was answering his prayers. He turned back to the front as Mass continued, but his prayers continued as well. Lord, You and I both know I don’t deserve Kathryn. Show me how to love her, and please help me not to ever hurt her.
When Mass was over, they walked hand-in-hand back out to his car. He opened her door again, and Kathryn marveled that he was what she had always asked God for—a gentleman who wasn’t out for a one-night stand. How that had happened she wasn’t at all sure because part of her knew that had been who he was, but somewhere down deep she suspected it had something to do with all of those prayers she had sent up on his behalf, even when she didn’t know who he was.
They started out of the parking lot and were already on the way to their next stop when he looked over at her.
“Mind if I ask you something?”
She was so happy she really didn’t even hear the question. “Shoot.”
“You and God are pretty close, right?”
“Yeah, pretty close.”
“Well, how do you do that? I mean how does it get from being all stinky incense and boring words to really believing like you do?”
She anchored her gaze outside. “Well, it’s kind of like going with somebody I guess. I mean we’ve just gotten to know each other.”
“Like reading the Bible and going to church?”
“Yes and no. You can do all of that stuff out of duty, but miss what He’s really about.”
“Which is?”
“Letting Him get to know you and you getting to know Him. He really is like my best friend. I know that sounds weird or whatever, but it’s true. I tell Him things I wouldn’t dare tell anybody else.”
Coming Undone Page 29
