Cal stood looking down at her. “You okay?”
She took the hand he offered. It felt thick and foreign, and she realized that this was the first time she’d held his hand. “Yeah. You?” She stood and he immediately let go.
Wariness flashed through his eyes and was gone. “I’m good.”
His gaze bore into hers, swirling with emotions that sucked her toward him. What was he thinking? Around them counselors shepherded their charges into groups.
She cleared her throat. “Now you’re the one not saying five hundred words.”
“I—you’re beautiful, Raine.” He turned and threaded his way to the double doors and out onto the porch.
#
“Jake!” Drew shouted. Remorse rose in his throat. What an idiot he’d been.
Jake stopped at the sound of his name and turned around in the gazebo.
He jogged up to Jake. His breath came in short blasts as he peered at Jake’s furrowed brow, the dread in his eyes. “Everyone’s okay. But I need to talk to you.”
“Can’t this wait? I have to go see if the Queen made it through.”
“Jake, I got your note this morning about not taking the kids to the waterfront. But I took them anyway. I screwed up. I didn’t even turn on the radio.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I know you’re glued to the weather station twenty-four-seven. But I didn’t listen.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Man, I am so sorry.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
He looked at Jake. Shame and embarrassment curdled in his stomach. “Bubba left a healthy patch of skin on the asphalt. Stu kicked a rock; the end of his big toe split open and the nurse took him for stitches.” He hung his head.
“That it?”
He looked up. “Yeah.”
“Don’t let it happen again.” Jake’s face was granite as he stared at him. He turned and made a bee line for the parking lot leaving him to stew in his misery.
#
Aly swept the debris from the office steps with rhythmic strokes. The air had been washed clean by the water spout, and she felt a sense of wonder. How long had she felt this way about Cal and not realized it.
The first time she’d met him was at Kallie and Jesse’s rehearsal dinner. She’d been in eighth grade, Cal in tenth, and she thought he was the hottest guy she’d ever seen. If he would have asked her out that first year, she would have gone. He’d flirted with her, stopped to see her occasionally, randomly called her, but he never asked her out. Cal had been cool, even then, too cool to ask a junior high girl out. Sweep. Sweep. Sweep.
By the time she got to high school, she was already going with Grant Fallon. But Cal was always around. Even after he graduated, seldom did a week go by that they didn’t get together or have a long conversation on the phone.
He’d painted her for his senior project. She couldn’t even remember who she’d been dating then, but a week straight of a moody Cal had almost put her over the edge. There had been a funky tension in the room, and she’d wasted the week dreaming about kissing him.
When Cal finished the portrait, he kissed her forehead, and she went back to whoever it was she was seeing—because she could never be alone.
She stopped sweeping. And Cal had been into her that whole time.
She swept the last step clean, twirling the broom in a graceful arc overhead. This time she’d tell Cal how she felt.
Chapter 11
Raine stood back as Cal scraped the wooden teacher’s chair into place in the middle of her classroom. He motioned for her to sit down. Even though she spent hours in this room every day, the scent of turpentine and the fainter petroleum jelly smell of paint made it feel like Cal’s.
His fingers gripped her shoulders, radiating warmth in every direction. He angled her into the sunset pouring through the open window. Placing her hands on the Bible in her lap, he stepped back to peer at her with the same intense look he’d worn since she walked in. He leaned toward her. The pads of his fingers pressed against her cheek moving her face a millimeter to the left.
Cal walked to his easel, but his touch was still on her skin. Orange light trapped her like a spotlight. Cal’s gaze unnerved her. He focused on the canvas, and she let the air out of her lungs. She watched him dab his brush into brown then red, blending them on his pallet.
Jeremiah 24:7 lay open on her knees. She read the words, praying them for Cal. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.
Shadows lengthened in the room. The clink of dishes being cleared away in the dining hall, shouts and the snap of a football on the athletic field drifted through the window. Somewhere, someone sang a folk song. Maybe it was Drew getting ready for the elementary kids’ campfire. She wished she was anywhere but pinned like a bug on a board by Cal’s gaze.
Please, Lord, give Cal a heart to know You.
“Praying?” Cal’s quiet voice boomed in the room.
“Yeah.”
“Why do you pray if God already knows?”
“Jesus told us to pray.” Raine shifted on the chair. “The ‘why’ doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Cal didn’t look up from the easel.
“I talk to God about the things I’m concerned about. He loves me and cares about what’s important to me.”
“If God is God, He’ll do what He wants no matter what you say.”
“He does what’s best for me.”
“You believe that?” Cal dipped his brush in paint the color of skin.
“You don’t?”
“What do you do when God says, ‘no?’ ”
Like not taking her crush away? “Endure. God uses our suffering to shape our character.” She looked at the thick cords of blond hair that brushed his shoulders, the sun-bleached brows that stood out against the tan of his skin. White hair curled on his muscular arms. She was going to have some kind of character after spending the summer fighting her feelings.
Cal looked up and caught her staring. Her eyes darted toward the window, her cheeks burning. When she looked back at Cal, she saw a small smile playing at the edges of his mouth and eyes. It reminded her of one she’d seen and dismissed earlier.
“Why are you quizzing me on prayer?”
“You think I have an ulterior motive?”
“You tell me.”
He sat on the table top behind him. “You were sitting there like you were afraid of your own skin. I wanted to paint your fire. Pretty much a no-brainer to get you going on a topic that lights your passion.” He shrugged and grinned at her.
Raine turned her face toward the bulletin board covered with crosses her elementary students had colored. Stupidity for having fallen for Cal’s manipulation warred against something entirely different. Cal saw something she didn’t see in herself—passion.
A board creaked nearby, and Cal squatted down in front of her. His hand cupped her face. “You moved.” He brought her head back into position. His palm stayed on her cheek a heartbeat too long, his fingers trailing down to her chin almost in a caress before he broke the contact.
She met his steady gaze. “What button are you trying to push now?”
Cal stood. “The one that turns your cheeks pink like they were a few minutes ago.”
Cal wasn’t the only one who could manipulate. “Let’s talk about obeying God.”
“Talk about whatever you want. I’m going to work on your shirt now.”
She would think about convincing Cal to love God. She would not think about Cal squinting at the landscape of her blouse. She would not think about his smirk. She would not think about the breeze ruffling the hair on her arms and making her feel naked in the middle of the room.
Cal chuckled. “That worked nicely.”
She ignored the heat creeping up her face. “God made rules to protect us. We obey Him out of gratitude, not because
we have to.”
“I’m not grateful. I want to do what I want to do. It burns my butt that everyone around me thinks I ought to be a mindless Christian robot.” Cal clapped his brush down on the easel.
Maybe she was getting to him, too. “Remember “The Matrix” movie?”
Cal picked up his brush and rolled it in the yellow of her blouse.
“You can’t experience reality until you get surgically unplugged from the lies of the world.”
“I like my reality. I’m staying out of God’s way, and I’ll thank Him to stay out of mine.”
Okay, so Cal wasn’t exactly missionary material. Yet. But did that rule out his going to Africa—with her? People went to Africa for other reasons, didn’t they—why else did they build airports? Maybe part of Cal’s attraction was that he wasn’t committed to a career—he was available to go to Africa. Would Cal work for, say, a safari company?
She watched Cal dab the brush against the canvas. “Ever think about going to Africa?”
He looked up. “Not even on vacation.”
The rest of the sunlight siphoned out of the room with her hope. Her heart hurt clear through to her ribs. She wanted to curl into a ball.
Lord, please, I’m begging You, take this infatuation away.
Why couldn’t Cal be sold out on God like Drew? What was she thinking? Drew drove her crazy with his teasing.
A tear leaked from the corner of her eye and she brushed it away before Cal saw it.Cal stood and stretched. Keeping the back of the painting toward Raine, he picked up the canvas in one hand and the easel in the other. “I’ll let you see the painting when I’m done.” He stopped in front of her. “See, sitting for me wasn’t so bad.” He walked out of the room.
Worse than what she’d expected. A thousand times worse.
#
Aly stomped her foot down and watched the muddy water fly out from the sole of her sneaker. A cup and a half of satisfaction flung at her anger, not nearly enough to douse it, not even close. Her sister Kallie’s judgments scattered like holes in a sponge along the dirt road back to her cabin—she shouldn’t be having sex with Gar, she needed to break the pattern, she needed God. She splatted her right foot, then her left into neighboring puddles.
Since when did Kallie become an expert on body language? And it was none of Kallie’s business who she slept with and whether she had the world’s crappiest taste in guys. Easy for Kallie—who never broke rules—to be religious. But she didn’t need God jamming His finger into her chest about her sins.
Her jeans were wet to the knees now, and she was soaked to the bone with Kallie’s “I only want the best for you” speech.
The evening had been perfect, her and Jillian coloring on the living room floor while rain hammered against the cabin roof. She should have left as soon as Kallie came home. But she waited to be sure Jillian stuck in bed after six trips out for more kisses and drinks.
She hefted each five-pound foot up the steps of her cabin, water squishing between her toes.
Inside the cabin, she peeled off her clothes and put on dry sweats. There was one way to salvage this evening. She felt for the Altoid box in the back of her underwear drawer and headed for the laundry porch. Her flip flops slung wet sand on the backs of her pant legs.
She sat in the dark, rolling the joint in her fingers. There was something pathetic about smoking alone. Where was Gar when she needed to talk? He was a miserable excuse for a boyfriend.
She heard the sound of footsteps and slid back into the shadows, curling in a ball against the laundry door. She realized how alone she was. She didn’t think straight when she was mad.
Cal’s familiar blond head came around the corner. The air wooshed out of her lungs. “Cal, you scared me to death!”
“Whoa! Aly. What are you doing out here?”
“I got into it with Kallie and I came out here to smoke.” She opened her fist. “Want some?”
“Sure.” Cal took the joint out of her palm. He ran it under his nose while she dug a pack of matches out of her pocket. Cal struck the match and cupped his hands around the flame.
She looked at the soft glow on Cal’s face as he sucked in deep drags. What if—
Cal stuck the reefer between her thumb and forefinger. His lips clamped together holding the smoke in his lungs.
She inhaled deeply, straining for the feeling that everything was going to be all right.
They were quiet, zig-zagging the small cigarette between them until it singed her finger tips. “Mother of God!” She dropped the butt on the porch floor and ground it out with her flip flop. She shook her fingers in the air. She got burned every time she smoked. Good thing she didn’t smoke often.
She leaned back against the rough boards of the siding. “I unloaded on Kallie tonight.” She looked over at Cal. “Told her I was sick of her judging me.”
“Feel better?” His words came out slower than they usually did.
“I feel like scum.” She could still see Kallie sitting on the edge of the camp-vintage, plaid sofa with her eight-month pregnant belly resting in her lap. Hurt peered from her eyes.
“Apologize.”
“But I meant everything I said.”
“She was probably worried about you.” Cal tilted back the crate he was sitting on so he could lean against the wall.
“She’s my sister. I know her.” It irked her that Cal disagreed with her—that he might be right.
“Whatever. I was trying to help.”
They sat there in silence. Cal’s eyes drooped and closed. She sat on the floor beside him, her legs stretched out in front of her. She stared at the chip in the petal pink nail polish on her big toe.
“Where’s lover boy?”
She lifted her hand and let it drop on her lap. “Who knows? Who cares?”
“I thought Gar was your boyfriend.”
“Then why is he never around when I need someone.” And you are. She floated above everything in a hot air balloon, looking down on her fight with Kallie, Gar flirting with a girl she couldn’t see—and it was fine, it was all fine. Nothing hurt. And Cal rode in the balloon basket with her, just her and Cal. Drifting. Together. She’d always been a little bit in love with Cal—
Cal laughed, or at least it was a mumbled, outburst that could have been a laugh.
“What?”
“I’m in love with Raine.”
The balloon hit an air pocket and she grabbed the porch floor to steady herself.
“I just realized it this minute.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh yeah. I’m sure.”
She didn’t like the candy corn sweetness of his smile. “Africa?”
“That’s a problem.” But he didn’t sound like it was a problem.
“God!” She raked her fingers through her hair. Why did things capsize the minute she thought about a decent guy?
“That’s another problem.”
“What are you going to do?”
Cal shrugged and stared into the woods, the candy corn smile still branded to his face.
Chapter 12
Raine filled her lungs with warm, water-logged air. A hazy, duckling-yellow sun laid a ribbon from the horizon to where Drew sat a hundred yards down the beach. She walked toward him on the water slicked sand. His knees were drawn up, his face buried in his arms, no guitar in sight.
“Morning.”
He lifted his head and looked at her with bloodshot eyes. “Hey.” His voice was as flat as the listless waves lapping at his feet.
She sat in the sand next to him and nudged his shoulder with hers. “What’s wrong? I’ve been here for thirty seconds and you haven’t called me ‘Rainey’ yet.”
He turned his head toward her, and she could see his soul swimming in ocean blue eyes. “I endangered thirty two lives yesterday by not doing what my boss told me to do.” His gaze settled on a white triangle of sail in the distance. “Why did I think I could make a better decision than Jake? He’s a sailor, a weather j
unkie. I don’t even read the weather in the paper.” He dropped his chin to his chest and stared at the sand between his feet.
“No one was hurt.”
“Stu sliced his toe open on a rock—four stitches. Bubba has a strawberry the shape of Florida and almost as big.”
Raine scooted around to face Drew. “You’ve asked God’s forgiveness—”
“All night.”
She picked up Drew’s Bible from where it lay on the sand. It felt heavy and foreign in her hands. She thumbed through the thin pages littered with underlines and hand-written notes. Her finger stopped on the passage she was looking for.
“If you confess your sins to God, He is faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.” She closed the book, running her hand across the worn, brown leather, and set it back on the sand. “What does it mean?”
“God has forgiven all of my sins.” Drew said it in a monotone.
“Did He forgive you for refusing to submit to Jake?”
“That’s what I said.”
She nudged his chin up with the back of her hand, forcing him to look at her. “It’s done. Faith is believing what God said in the Bible is true.” She dropped her knuckles from the stubble on his chin.
“I believe it. I don’t feel it.”
“Your feelings will catch up. If the emotion was wiped out as soon as God forgave us, we’d go right back out and do the same thing again. Like I’m sure not drinking any more wine on camp property!”
Drew’s eyes widened. “You’re what?”
“Cal and Aly are on a mission to educate the missionary. I tasted Cal’s wine cooler—” She was embarrassed all over again. “God used it to help Aly see I mess up like she does, but I still regret it.”
Drew shook his head. “You’re full of surprises.”
Her gaze drifted down the beach littered with tree limbs and seaweed and trash displaced by the waterspout—not so different from the wreckage inside Drew. She looked back at him. “Let’s pray.”
Drew shrugged like he didn’t see the point.
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