DANA DRIED HER HANDS OFF ON THE THICK BROWN HAND towel that hung from a brass ring on the wall of the cabin bathroom, checked her hair in the mirror, and paused before opening the door and again asked the question stuck in her mind like a bad advertising jingle. “What am I doing here?”
Three against one. She should have seen it coming. Tamera coming was too good to be true. Yes, the healing Dana had experienced on the way here was real. Yes, she believed God wanted her here, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to dive into Reece’s world of spiritual Olympics with people she barely knew.
She would be fine. She functioned quite capably among the men in the radio industry and could handle this, but still, why couldn’t Tamera be here to temper the testosterone? Dana needed to let it go. Trust God in this. So easily said, so hard to live.
Reece still hadn’t told her anything about the third member of their group, even after they arrived. Which was certainly not a good sign. Why would he keep the mystery going till the last possible second? Why couldn’t she know anything about him but Marcus could?
This wasn’t just a recipe for disaster, this dish had already been baked and served with a nice hot chili-pepper sauce on top. She sighed, pulled the bathroom door open, and shuffled down the hall and around the corner into the great room.
“Okay, any bets on when the third member of our little tribe is going to show—?” The last word didn’t just stick in her throat. It filled her stomach and made her want to retch.
It couldn’t be him. Not here. But it was him, standing fifteen feet from her, a stupid smile mashed all over his face as if it were four years ago and they were looking for something dumb to do on a Saturday night and succeeding more often than not.
Brandon. What had Reece done? She hadn’t seen him in three years. Not a phone call. Not an e-mail. Not a Christmas card. Nothing. But what had she expected? When Brandon broke it off, she made him promise to get out of her life entirely. No contact whatsoever. He had abided by her request. And she’d successfully buried the part of her that wished he hadn’t honored her demand.
“Hi, Dana.” He shifted his weight back and forth on his Converse All Stars, black denim jeans hanging loosely, dark blond hair styled like he was ready to step onstage at Creation Fest and whip his adoring fans into a frenzy.
“Brandon Scott.” She widened her legs slightly and clenched her jaw tight. There was no way she’d show surprise or any other kind of emotion. She took another step into the living room and slowly folded her arms across her chest.
“Yeah.” He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “From the look on your face, you didn’t know I was coming.”
No kidding, cowboy. She blinked. “What are you—?” The words stuck again.
“Doing here?” Brandon pulled his hands from his pockets and popped his fists together and looked at Reece. “You want to tackle this one?”
Dana glared at Reece with her best “I want to kill you” stare, but he didn’t flinch and stayed silent. She spun back to Brandon. “You don’t look surprised to see me.”
“Not entirely. Reece told me last night you’d be here.”
She glanced at Reece, then back to Brandon. “Then why in God’s green and blue and purple and gold universe did you still come?”
Brandon sputtered a few unintelligible words.
“And you.” She took two strides toward Reece and pointed at him. “Why didn’t you tell me? And don’t give me some flippant ‘You didn’t ask’ type answer. I did ask.”
Reece’s face was stone. “If you had come to the meeting at Snoqualmie Falls, you would have discovered then that Brandon is one of the four and would have been able to choose whether or not to come to Well Spring.”
Her face went hot. “You could have told me in the airport or on the plane or on the phone.”
Reece bent and picked up the hatchet resting on the ledge of the fireplace and split a piece of pine into kindling. “No, it wasn’t something to do on the phone. And it wasn’t something to do without both of you here. That day at the falls was the only time both your schedules would allow you to address the issue in person. I told you the meeting was critical. And you chose not to come.”
“I’m leaving.” Dana spun on her heel and marched out of the room into the hallway.
“The considerable distance to the next town that we discussed on the way here has not changed.”
“I’ll take your rental car.” Dana stopped at the front door, yanked it open, and shouted back toward the great room, “When I come back, don’t be here, Brandon.” She slammed the door as hard as she could and stumbled outside, her shoes kicking up small clouds of dust.
“Hand me some of that newspaper, Brandon.” Reece pointed to a wicker basket next to the couch.
“Sure.” Brandon grabbed a handful of paper and walked it over to Reece. He wanted to hand him his resignation papers. He should be the one to leave, not her. Did he expect Dana to be upset? Of course. But not this bad. He’d known he’d hurt her, but it had been three years and . . . the reality was he didn’t know anything. He looked up. Marcus was staring at him.
“She and I, uh, have some history together.”
“It was not a challenge to surmise that.” The professor adjusted his glasses. “I assume the severing of the relationship was difficult.”
“Very.” Brandon turned to Reece, who knelt at the fireplace crumpling the paper and laying kindling on top of it. “By the way, thanks for giving me all that warning about Dana not knowing I would be here.”
Reece turned to him slowly. “Do you miss her?”
“What?”
“You heard me.” Reece turned back to building his fire.
Wow. Brandon gave his eyes a quick squeeze with his thumb and forefinger. Did he? He hadn’t let that question surface for a long time. Because he didn’t want to face the answer. That can of worms was buried in the vault inside the vault inside the vault. Because if it was yes—he missed her—then he’d blown it by breaking up with her.
If it was no, then he should have given her a better answer than he did for why he ended things. Who was he kidding? He should have given her a better answer in either case. And he would have, if he knew what it was.
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do know.” Reece stood. “I’m going to go talk to Dana.”
As the sliding glass door closed behind Reece, Brandon admitted the truth. He missed her deeply.
Dana dug her fingers into the palm of her hand as she stumbled toward the river. No tears. No way. He’d been the cause of a reservoir full three years back. He’d already taken his allotment—and far more than he was worth. But her heart didn’t agree with her head, and tears spilled onto her cheeks a minute later. She walked down the long walkway to the listening post, sat, and stared at the stream, lit like a river of diamonds by the late afternoon sun.
“What are you doing to me, God? This makes no sense.”
She held out her ring finger and massaged it with her right index finger. Brandon’s ring had fit there like finger and ring were one. Now it seemed the finger would stay empty the rest of her life. He’d stepped through her front door on that early May afternoon three years ago, and it had taken a millionth of a second to know something was wrong.
“Hey, handsome.” She sat up in her chair and smiled.
“Hey.” Brandon closed her front door and stood just inside it, his eyes blinking as his gaze darted everywhere in the room except at her.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
She motioned him over and set her book on the end table next to her overstuffed light green chair. He sat and Dana took his hands.
“Talk to me. Did something fall through with our honeymoon?”
Brandon shook his head.
“Tell me.”
He pulled his hands out of hers, pressed his palms against his temples, and leaned his head back. “We’re not supposed to be together anymore.”
Her throat constricted and a dull tingling sensation smothered her. “Wha . . . what?”
“I’m sorry.”
The room blurred and everything seemed to slow down. Except for her breathing. She sucked in rapid breaths. “I don’t . . .” No more words came.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Why, Brandon? What are you doing?”
“I don’t know, I just know it’s right.”
This was impossible. Three months before the wedding and he’s breaking up with her? “There has to be a reason.”
“I know, I know . . . you’re totally right, but I just . . . can’t put it into words—”
“You mean you know why you’re doing this but don’t know how to say it, or you don’t know why you’re doing it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have to know!”
Brandon stood and shouted back, “I don’t know.” He paced on her tan carpet. “If I knew I would tell you.”
“Have you prayed about this?”
“Yes, of course. I—”
She stood and pulled at her white blouse. “It’s nerves, Brandon. That’s all. It happens.”
“It’s not nerves. It’s just right.”
“How can it be right if you don’t even know why you’re doing it?”
“It’s not that I don’t love you, I do, but—”
“If you love me, then what is it?”
“Forgive me, but this is what I have to do.”
They’d talked on and on, never getting any closer to the center—to the reason he was leaving.
The door had closed behind him an hour later, and Dana sat in the room till night came and tears came no more.
When her eyes fluttered open early the next morning, the memory of what happened the night before smashed against her heart and the tears came again. Finally she stirred and her head flopped to her right. She glanced at the open Bible on the bottom of the end table. A verse was highlighted in faded yellow. She lifted the Bible to her lap and stared at the words: “Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning.”
A bitter laugh spilled out of her mouth. How ironic. Her weeping had certainly lasted the night, but she wouldn’t be shouting for joy this morning. Two years and thirteen months of mornings had come and gone, and she was still waiting for the joy.
“Why did you put me through that, Lord?” She looked up at the mountains. “Why am I still going through it?”
A response came so fast Dana blinked.
I’m in this.
The sound of shuffling feet spun Dana around. Head tilted down, hands behind his back, Reece stood ten yards behind her.
“You feel I’ve betrayed you.”
“It’s not a feeling, it’s a fact.”
“May I join you?”
Dana shrugged.
Hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans, Reece strolled up and stopped a few paces from the wooden lounge chair she sat on.
“When you break a bone, you often scrape up the skin at the spot where the break occurs. If you went to the doctor and he treated the scrape and did nothing about the break, you’d sue him for malpractice.”
“What’s your point?”
“You’ve been treating the scrape, Dana.” Reece took a step closer. “It’s time to mend the break. Set it right. Give it a chance to heal.”
“Is that the only reason I’m here? So I can face the fact that Brandon Scott is a colossal jerk? I already know that.”
“Far from it.”
“I’m all ears.”
“It’s your destiny to be here, Dana.”
“Oh really. How nice. Is it Brandon’s destiny to be here too?”
“Yep.”
“How interesting that my supposed destiny is intricately tied to the one person in the world I never want to see again. The one person who ripped out my heart and stuck it in a blender.”
“It is interesting. Because I don’t think God plays dice with our lives.”
“Einstein. But he said, ‘God does not play dice with the universe.’”
“Very good. I’d have expected Marcus to know that quote, but not you or Brandon.”
“I’m so thrilled I could surprise you.” She leaned back and released a heavy breath.
He took two more steps and sat next to her on the long wooden lounge chair. “If you want to go home, you can. You can take the car. But before you make a decision, sit here and ask the Spirit what he wants.
“This is going to sound harsh, but I don’t know any other way to say it. And I apologize ahead of time for being a man. But these next four days aren’t all about you. It’s about the Spirit and what he wants to accomplish inside all three of you, which will train you to do so much for others. This small little group is a body and you need each other. Marcus and Brandon need you. You need them. For whatever reason, God chose the three of you, and no one else can take your place.”
“I can’t stay, Reece.”
“The enemy took Tamera out. Don’t let him take you out as well.”
“If I’d known Brandon would be here, I wouldn’t have come.”
“Don’t you think God knows that? Which might be one of the reasons you didn’t come to that meeting at Snoqualmie Falls.”
“I still want to kill both of you.”
“God and me, or Brandon and me?”
A smile slipped to the surface of her face.
Reece leaned forward. “I don’t blame you, but don’t let the emotion of the moment steal what Jesus has here for you.”
He stood and walked back toward the cabin. Dana watched the undulations in the water, wishing she could get in the current and float away. But Reece, as harsh as he was, was right. God had told her to come. There was no doubt about that. So why would Brandon’s being here change that?
Because it just did. It changed everything. She screamed into the mountains. Again. And again. Then slid off the chair and sank down till she sat crisscrossed, her head folded forward.
“Lord, are you in this?” She looked up at the aspen trees. “You say you are, but how can you be in something I can’t do?”
Stay.
She continued to stare at the river. Finally she stood, turned, and gazed at the cabin a hundred yards away. “I’m yours. You know that. But while we’re here, if you could give Brandon a serious case of poison ivy or poison oak or whatever kind of poison is in these parts, I’d greatly appreciate it.”
Thirty minutes later Dana walked through the sliding glass door and eased into the living room. “I’m staying.”
The closest thing she’d seen to a smile instantly appeared on Reece’s face and vanished just as quickly. “That is excellent news.”
“I’m pleased, Dana,” Marcus said.
“Thanks.”
She didn’t look at Brandon and he didn’t say anything. At some point they’d talk. But not yet. Maybe not at all. She knew that wouldn’t be the case, but she could still hope for it.
Reece motioned Dana over and as she gazed into those deep liquid blue eyes, a joy washed over her. For all his gruffness, she saw in his eyes a depth of compassion and love she hadn’t known since Pappy died.
When she reached him she wrapped her arms around his chest and leaned into his massive body. He wrapped her up in his long arms and squeezed so tight, she thought she might burst and wished he would squeeze even tighter. Something broke inside her, but a good kind of breaking. And it wasn’t Reece holding her . . . it was her pappy in the days before he grew weak and succumbed to the leukemia. The moment only lasted a few seconds but it also lasted for centuries, and somehow she knew the healing of her heart had begun.
Reece gently released her. “Okay. Now that introductions are finished, it’s time for us to meet in a more organized way. Let’s take ten minutes to get settled, and then we’ll meet out at the listening post and talk about what’s going to happen for the next few days.”
“Are there any accoutrements you’d like us to bring?”
“Accoutrements?” Brandon snorted. “My dear professor, I’ll have to start carrying around a dictionary to have any hope of understanding you.”
“Um, paraphernalia, supplies, accessories—things we might need while we’re gathered.”
“An excellent question,” Reece said. “Yes, bring an attitude that is ready and willing to explore a Christianity you’ve never known before. And bring a heart that is willing to an even greater degree.” Reece gazed at each of them for a few seconds. “We’re about to boldly go where few men and women have gone before.”
“You need to get out of the sixties, Reece.” Brandon grinned.
“Star Trek is forever, pal.” Reece tilted his head. “And I’m hoping you soon find out how true that statement is.”