Unexpected Reunion Read online

  “Oh, my goodness! You were amazing!” Savannah hobbled over to him and squeezed his arm appreciatively.

  Paisley joined them, followed closely by Ruthie and Cali. “Yes, indeed. Cali was quite frantic,” she said. “Thank God you were here to calm that man down. You were brilliant.”

  “Gray is amazing,” Savannah declared. “A knight in shining armor.”

  Fortunately, Ruthie refrained from turning the event into a medieval knighting ceremony. “Would you two mind taking Cali inside?”

  The two women flashed glances at Ruthie. At her nod, they disappeared into the house.

  Then she looped her hand through Gray’s elbow. “Looks like it’s my turn to rescue you,” she said with a small laugh.

  Just as she expected, he didn’t laugh with her.

  The last thing she wanted to do was to give Gray a reason to leave her again, but after what they’d both just witnessed, she couldn’t just stand here and pretend it had been an ordinary turn of events.

  “I agreed not to pressure you, and I’ve upheld my end of the bargain,” she said. “But you have to admit the situation couldn’t have been choreographed better than how it turned out. You were here...the right person for the situation at the right time, with all the right things to say.”

  He pushed his fingers into his hair, and it looked as though he might actually give it a strong tug. “It’s coincidence, Ruthie. Why can’t it be just a simple coincidence?”

  He sounded tired. Perhaps tired of having this discussion with her, but maybe he was just tired of arguing it with himself.

  Whatever the case, she couldn’t just let it slide. Couldn’t let “coincidence” be the last word on the subject. She had agreed not to pressure him, but she hadn’t agreed to stifle her own thoughts and beliefs in subjugation to his.

  Despite her frustration with his unwillingness to see the truth, she purposefully softened her tone and focused on her desire to understand where he was coming from. “How can you show such compassion and understanding of others, yet not see that God put you—of all people—in that man’s path? He needed someone strong. Someone who understood how to lead him where he was supposed to go. You were that person, and I believe God put you here for him in that moment.”

  Now she found herself pushing her fingers through her hair in an action that mimicked his gesture of a moment ago. She lowered her hands and was surprised to discover she’d left her hair intact.

  “You can’t call that a coincidence,” she added.

  Gray’s jaw jutted forward, and he stared down at her, his expression stoic and hard. “Maybe I shouldn’t have called it a coincidence,” he admitted.

  Finally! At last they were getting somewhere.

  His hand squeezed hers in a manner that didn’t quite match his expression. Perhaps to convey that he understood where she was coming from? That he was open to the possibility that although Jakey Rayner’s prayer had not been answered in the way they had wanted, God was present and active in their lives every day?

  “Maybe,” he said, his eyes softening as he looked down at her, “a better term would be fluke, happenstance, luck, or twist of fate. I’m sorry, but two unexpected circumstances happening at the same time does not imply causality.”

  Slowly he released her hands, and she felt as though her heart would break in two.

  She had tried to do all the right things. Live by example. Step back and give him space. Bite her tongue to hold back even the most innocuous comments that might be taken the wrong way. She had tried to be respectful and understanding, yet it wasn’t enough. And might never be enough.

  Well, enough about him. What about her? Could she be with him if he didn’t believe? If he never changed his heart? She had thought such a pairing might be possible, especially since they were compatible in so many other ways, but maybe this one major difference couldn’t be reconciled after all.

  “I’m going to skip the classic-car event tonight,” he said as casually as if they had just been discussing what they’d eaten for dinner. “I’ve got to go to the office tomorrow morning and finish some work at the office with Daisy.”

  He bent and kissed her, but the gesture warmed her about as much as ice cream on a snowy day. Then he got into his car and waited for her to go inside and lock the door before he drove off.

  Ruthie went straight to her room and didn’t bother to turn on the light. She had promised she wouldn’t try to change Gray, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t ask God to do some fine-tuning on his heart.

  She knelt beside the bed and pressed her palms together. This was too big for her to handle. Who better to turn it over to than God? Cali pushed her nose under her elbow, and Ruthie looped her arm around the Lab’s neck.

  “After all,” she told the dog, “if God could change Saul’s heart and the hearts of kings, He can surely change Gray’s.”

  And if that prayer wasn’t answered in the way she hoped, she would have to change her own heart...and let him go.

  * * *

  The prowler’s capture warranted a two-minute spot on the eleven-o’clock news in which the anchorman explained that the delusional man had been apprehended while searching for his dog. Then the fickle media moved on to a three-car accident in neighboring Henrico County.

  By the next morning, Ruthie’s attention had turned to creating a display on the back wall featuring Sobo’s hats and some stylized heart-shaped wrought iron pieces. Hard and soft. Cold, wintry colors and warm textures. Opposites.

  Back to that again. Last night she had fallen asleep wondering if she should just set her concerns aside and try to find a way to meet Gray in the middle. Wishing it was even possible to mesh a relationship around two such divergent beliefs. And while she was wondering about the future, what about children? Was it possible to raise a child with two differently believing parents and not have the little one grow up confused and searching, possibly in the wrong places?

  The front door to the shops opened and closed several times, so she needed to hurry and finish this job before any customers needed her attention. She moved a beveled-glass picture frame and temporarily set it on a small round display table where it wouldn’t get broken while she climbed up to arrange the pieces on the wall. With a knee hold on the waist-high storage cabinet along the back wall, she climbed up onto the surface to drape some beads over the decorations for a feminine and festive effect.

  “I’ll spot you.” Savannah appeared beside the cabinet and held her arms up in preparation to catch her if she fell.

  A customer with a two-year-old daughter in tow paused to watch. “Ruthie, please be careful. You’re making me nervous.”

  Milena, a regular at Gleanings and especially at Milk & Honey, had become a mother a few months ago after a trip to China to adopt little June. Since then, her mothering tendencies had widened to encompass everyone in her path, whether young, old, friend or stranger.

  When the new mom had first brought June to the shop to show her off, Ruthie’s thoughts had gone immediately to the baby she and Gray might have had if they had stayed together. Would their child have had dark hair and warm-toned skin like Gray’s? Would the genes from Sobo’s lovely almond-shaped brown eyes have been passed along through Gray to the child, or would there have been a hint of Ruthie’s hazel eyes and reddish hair in their blended traits?

  Now that she and Gray were back together, albeit connected by a fraying thread, there was another thought to add to her futuristic musings. Would the child go to church with her and learn that red and yellow, black and white, we’re all precious in His sight? Or would that child stay home on Sunday mornings and learn that God is a fairy tale and that you have to rely on your own strength to get by?

  She moved to one side to straighten the gold-and-black hat with the asymmetric brim, and her foot slipped on a scrap of paper that had been left on
top of the cabinet.

  Savannah and Milena gasped as one. Little June, thinking it a joke, squealed with delight, then giggled in anticipation of her doing it again.

  “Ruthie, please come down,” Milena pleaded. “Let me help you.”

  “I’m fine,” she insisted as she righted herself and nudged the paper off the cabinet to avoid a repeat performance. “You go ahead and shop around. Holler if you need me.”

  Milena grabbed June by the hand. “We’ll go over there where we can’t watch you.”

  “Speaking of needing you,” Savannah said, her head tipped back and arms outstretched as if fully expecting her to fall. “How is Mrs. Bristow? Is she back to climbing the rose trellis yet? Considering your monkey antics today, I’m beginning to think you and she may be more than honorary relatives.”

  The bell over the door jangled again. The sound of money, Savannah had called it. All of the Abundance entrepreneurs welcomed the Saturday surge of customers.

  She gave Savannah a quick update on Sobo’s health and filled her in on the unresolved situation with the doll. “The aunt’s birthday party is today, so it looks like we’re going to have to break the news about the doll to Sobo very soon.” She started to bend down for the pile of bead necklaces at her feet, then thought better of it. “Would you mind handing me the purple beads?”

  Sobo’s recent health crisis had driven home the unwelcome reality that Ruthie’s loved ones were getting older. Only God knew how much longer she would be able to enjoy their company, so she needed to make sure to spend plenty of quality time with them now. The Bristows—all of them—were her family. Without them, she would be as adrift as the day her mother died.

  No, she couldn’t bear the thought of losing her honorary grandparents.

  “What about you and Gray?” Savannah persisted. “You two seem pretty happy together. Does that mean your faith issues have been resolved?”

  Ruthie focused on straightening the items on the Peg-Board wall. She couldn’t bring herself to look at her friend, who would surely be able to see the conflicted feelings in her eyes—the joy of being back together with the man she loved, tempered by the feeling they were incomplete without the faith that had once connected them on a very deep level.

  “Progress is slow,” she admitted. “He has his heart set against God, but I’m praying and believing he’ll eventually turn around. Hoping for sooner rather than later.”

  It had to be soon if their relationship was to survive. The longer she waited for Gray to return to God, the harder it would be to let go if this proved to be an irreconcilable point between them.

  Savannah fell silent, an unusual occurrence for her bubbly friend.

  Finished with arranging the wall display, Ruthie turned to ease herself down from the cabinet and found Savannah staring at a stern-faced Gray.

  “That’s not what we agreed,” he said, his voice grim.

  Savannah looked as if she’d rather be anywhere but here, but being the true friend that she was, she stayed and extended a hand to Ruthie. “Here, let me help you down.”

  “No,” Gray intoned. “I’ll let her down.”

  If Ruthie hadn’t otherwise been focused on coming up with an explanation for her overheard comment, she might have taken a moment to mull over his odd choice of words.

  Savannah scurried off and glanced over her shoulder at Ruthie, an expression of apology on her face for bailing out and leaving her to deal with Gray’s dark mood alone.

  Gray lifted a hand, and Ruthie reluctantly accepted the help he offered and gingerly clambered down.

  He closed his fingers around her hand and grasped her elbow to steady her. Holding her this close made him want to pull her into his arms. But to do so would sacrifice his integrity. His sense of honor. The request to keep faith off the table had been a sincere one, and her comment to Savannah told him she hadn’t taken it seriously, that she had merely been biding her time until he changed his mind.

  Why did she have to go and ruin everything just when he thought they were doing so well?

  Ruthie looked up at him with big eyes. She reminded him of the time when, as a teenager learning to drive, she had accidentally bumped her car into his in a clumsy attempt to parallel park. She had clearly been scared he would blow up at her for having dinged his precious Miata. But he hadn’t then. Definitely wouldn’t now either, even though she had dinged something even more precious than a car fender.

  His trust.

  The situation with Jake Rayner had taught him he couldn’t count on God or anyone else to take care of him and the people he cared about. People had to take care of themselves. Right now he needed to protect himself from her unreasonable expectations.

  What hurt most was Ruthie’s unspoken message that he wasn’t enough. That he would only be good enough if he would just ignore the life lesson he had learned in Afghanistan and come around to her way of thinking. But he couldn’t ignore the fact that his friend was dead because Ruthie’s God had ignored the kid’s pleas.

  Maybe he wasn’t enough. If so, he was sure to disappoint Ruthie at every turn. What kind of a relationship was that? In addition to protecting himself, he needed to do the right thing and protect her from endless disappointments that would surely arise when he couldn’t—and wouldn’t—become the kind of person she wanted him to be.

  He directed her to a quiet corner, away from the customer who studied an assortment of decorative wall clocks. In backing up, he bumped against a small display table, and he felt more than heard something wobble and fall. A millisecond later the brittle sound of broken glass filled the air.

  He turned and stared down at an ornate picture frame that had split into four jagged pieces, then bent to pick up the sharp fragments.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Ruthie said, touching a hand to his arm.

  He yanked away from her. “You don’t understand. I do worry about it.” He scooped up the pieces and piled them on the cabinet where she’d been standing a moment earlier. “That’s me,” he said, pointing to the shards of glass and bent silver frame. “The frame can’t be fixed, and God and your prayers can’t fix me, either.”

  He gripped her by the upper arms, and she seemed so small in his hands. Her eyes had reddened, and she blinked back the moisture that threatened to spill over. Oddly enough, they didn’t seem to be tears of remorse for having broken their pact but rather of disappointment. In him.

  “I really wasn’t trying to fix you,” she said, her gaze pleading with him to understand.

  That was the problem. He didn’t understand. Didn’t understand why a young soldier had to die, nor did he understand why she persisted in believing a fable. Why she expected that he should believe it, too.

  “I just thought that—”

  “That I would become what you want me to be? That I’m not enough just as I am?” He thought of the church hymn that promised he would be accepted just as he already was. What a cruel joke.

  But it was no more cruel than staying in a relationship that defined him by what he wasn’t. By the person he could never be again.

  “I can’t be the person you want me to be.” He reached for Ruthie, but she pushed his hand away.

  She squared her shoulders and stood as tall as she could in his looming presence. All this time, she’d been wishing, hoping, dreaming and praying that they’d overcome the one obstacle that kept them apart. She had hated when their relationship had broken up while he’d been at war, and now she hated that their recently renewed relationship had become a war front in its own right.

  She wanted him to believe as she did, but he just couldn’t do it. As long as they were together, this would be a point of contention between them, no matter how they bargained to abide by the status quo.

  With a note of heartbreaking finality, she summoned from deep inside herself the courag
e to tell him, “I can’t be with you and not want you to know and love God as I do. And I refuse to continue to cling to what I now know is false hope.”

  She felt the heat of Gray staring down at her. She bit down on her lips, which puckered from an attempt to hold back the sob that caught in her throat but which might otherwise look as if she were begging to be kissed. She’d done enough begging and conceding. Now was the time to hold firm, not only to her faith beliefs, but to what she wanted in a romantic partner and possible future mate. Even if it meant letting go. As much as she wanted otherwise, this relationship—this man—was obviously not meant for her.

  Her chin trembled, and she regretted that he saw her weakness. Hoped he wouldn’t read the sign of emotion as mixed feelings or, worse, uncertainty over what she was about to say.

  “You were right the first time,” she told him, her voice stronger than the spaghetti noodles that suddenly inhabited her bones. “This can’t possibly work between us.”

  Gray pushed a hand through his hair. Despite his initial anger over her refusal to give up on her hopes of converting him back to being a believer again, he had not expected she would use this IED to resolve their differing stands. The sob that she’d been trying so valiantly to hold back now lodged itself in his heart. Her chin quivered again, making her seem small and delicate.

  Delicate, yes, but he knew from experience that she could set her jaw in stubborn determination when she wanted something strongly enough. Although he wouldn’t—couldn’t—change his heart to appease her, he had no desire to throw away all the other things that had been going so well between them.

  “Let’s talk,” he said, and tried to steer her toward the shop’s exit. “You’ll close Gleanings, and we can go over to Pizza Piazza for lunch. We can order breadsticks. Like old times,” he urged, and belatedly realized he was using food to bargain with her. “Let’s not be hasty. We can work this out.”