JANET’S LAUGHTER PRECEDED HER INTO THE KITCHEN the next morning. “That must have been some hot tub.”
Kimberly turned, coffee mug in hand. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you were humming.”
“I was not. Was I?”
Janet laughed again. “Yes, m’dear, you were. And if I’m not mistaken, it was an old George Strait hit. ‘Love Without End, Amen.’ ”
A slow smile curved Kimberly’s mouth. She remembered the song playing on the iPod last night. “You’re right. I was humming. Guess I remembered the tune but not the words.”
“So? Spill. How was your date?”
“Very nice.” She felt her smile broaden.
“And?” Janet wiggled her fingers, as if trying to pull more words out of Kimberly.
“And none of your business.” Kimberly tried to look stern but she failed.
Janet clapped her hands. “I knew it! You two are perfect for each other.”
“Hardly perfect.”
“Why?”
Her smile slipped. “Nobody is perfect.” She moved away from the coffeemaker and stood at the sliding glass door, staring up the sloping ground toward the home of Ned and Susan Lyle.
“I didn’t say he was perfect. I said the two of you are perfect together.”
Kimberly released a sigh, her good humor drained away. “I wish you’d attend to your own love life.”
“I have no love life, Kimmie. That’s why I need to meddle with yours.”
“Thanks a lot.” She turned around. “Look, I don’t know where this attraction is going. Let’s not make it more than it is. It may go nowhere.”
“And it may go somewhere,” Janet countered.
“You don’t give up, do you?”
“Nope.”
Kimberly shook her head slowly, her smile returning. “You’re hopeless.”
“Hopeful, my friend. Not hopeless.”
THE FOURTH OF JULY FUN BEGAN IN KINGS MEADOW in the afternoon with a parade along the meandering main street of town. Afterward there was a public barbecue in the city park, followed by games, music, dancing, and fireworks. The celebration of Independence Day had been much the same when Chet was a boy. Then the recession of the eighties had come, and the town had been forced to cut back in countless ways. The Fourth of July had been one of the victims. But when Oliver Abbott was elected mayor, he put the old traditions of parade, food, and fireworks back onto the township’s calendar. It felt good for the community to come together again. Mighty good.
This year, Chet took a place at one of the many propane grills lined up on the west side of the park, flipping burgers and hot dogs for the people of Kings Meadow. One grill over from him was Tom Butler. The Methodist minister had been one of the first responders when Chet’s barn caught fire, and not long after, he’d bought one of the Leonard horses. A friendship had formed between them over the past weeks, based upon mutual respect and a similar sense of humor.
Kimberly and Janet were the first customers at Chet’s grill. He felt a quickening in his chest when he saw Kimberly, and he couldn’t help noticing that when he smiled, she blushed.
Janet held a plate out toward Chet so he could drop a burger onto the bun. “So you’ll know, Anna has your blanket and chairs right next to ours.” She pointed with her free hand.
He didn’t bother to look to see what she meant. His eyes remained on Kimberly. Her blush deepened.
Man, she’s pretty. What he wouldn’t give to kiss her again, right here, right now.
After Kimberly got her hamburger and the two women walked away, Tom said, “How are things going with you and the lovely widow?”
Chet figured by now there wasn’t anybody in Kings Meadow who didn’t know he’d taken Kimberly to a concert in Boise. More than a few might know about their visit to the hot springs last night too. Gossip rode a fast horse.
“Don’t care to tell me?” Tom prodded.
“Sorry.” He looked at his friend. “What did you say?”
Tom chuckled in reply.
Chet turned his attention to the grill, flipping hamburgers and hot dogs before they burned. A good thing too. A rush of hungry citizens, fresh from three-legged races and other games, ended their conversation. It seemed the men at the grills barely had time to breathe for the next forty-five minutes.
The afternoon was a hot one. The first thing Chet wanted when he turned off the propane and closed the cover on the grill was something cold to drink. Tom wanted the same thing, so they headed for a booth where high school kids were selling lemonade, bottled water, and Diet Cokes. Both of them ordered the latter with lots of ice. When they got their beverages, they wandered toward the creek and some available shade. A fallen tree provided a bench.
“So,” Tom said after he’d downed about half of his Diet Coke. “You were going to tell me how things are going with you and Kimberly Welch.”
“Was I?”
“Yes, you were.”
Maybe it would be good to talk to a third party about his feelings, Chet realized. Anna and his boys weren’t exactly impartial. And he needed an outsider’s view to know if he was being a romantic fool or if this was something God could be behind.
“I am a good listener,” Tom added.
“For a Methodist.” Chet grinned. His comment was already a well-used joke between them. No matter what they were talking about, if it had to do with Tom, one of them added, “For a Methodist.”
Tom shook his head, as if exasperated.
Chet took a few more swallows of his drink. Then he looked toward the park. He couldn’t see Kimberly or the rest of the family in the crowd. “I think I might be falling in love with her,” he said at last. With a shrug, he added, “Maybe I already am in love with her.”
“Then I suppose that means things are going well.”
Again, he shrugged. “I’m not sure she plans to stay in Idaho. When I first met her, she seemed eager to get away from Kings Meadow as soon as possible. Last I knew, she was still hoping to find employment elsewhere.”
“And she hasn’t changed her mind?”
“Maybe.” He thought of the two of them at the hot springs. “I can’t say for certain.”
“Perhaps you should ask her outright.”
Chet turned toward Tom. “I’m afraid to ask. What if she’s unsure right now, but by asking, I force her to make a choice?”
“And she makes the wrong one. Is that what you mean?”
“Exactly.” Again Chet looked toward the park, searching the crowd for a dark ponytail poking through the back of a pink baseball cap. He didn’t see her. Nor did he see Janet, Tara, either of his sons, or Nana Anna.
“Chet, is something else troubling you?”
He turned toward Tom once again. “I guess there is.” He drew a deep breath. “I don’t want to date Kimberly just to have a female friend. I want it to go somewhere.”
“Of course.”
“But that’s when I get nervous. My wife walked out, Tom. One day she packed up and disappeared. Sure, some of it had to do with Rick’s death, but there’s got to be other reasons she threw away marriage and sons and even denied her faith the way she did. She said she no longer believed in God. She divorced me so fast I hardly knew what hit me. Maybe I’m not meant to be a husband. Maybe I’m no good at it.” He finished the last of the beverage in the plastic cup. “Is it even right, in God’s eyes, for me to want to marry again?”
“Whoa. You had a lot more on your heart than I guessed.”
To be honest, Chet hadn’t known all of that had been worrying him until he said it. “Sorry. I shouldn’t’ve—”
“No, don’t be sorry. You need to work this through. But I doubt we’ve got enough time now to give it the study it deserves. Could we get together in the next couple of days? Somewhere quiet, just the two of us.”
“Sure. That’d be good.” Chet stood, suddenly eager to get back to the hubbub of the Independence Day crowd.
Tom got up from the log. “Before you go, let me say this. There are biblical reasons for divorce, and there are allowances for new marriages. First Corinthians 7 says, ‘Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace.’ It would be good for you to remember that. You are not under bondage, and God wants you to have peace. Perhaps knowing that will calm your troubled thoughts.”
Tom’s words were a balm to Chet. Not that he had everything worked out yet, in his head or his heart, but it was a beginning.