“Do you think your dad will be home?”
Ian’s deep voice made Emily jump. He had been quiet for so long Emily assumed he’d dozed off. “On a Sunday night? Yeah, probably.” She tore her eyes from the road long enough to sneak a glimpse of Ian’s steely profile. Maybe he was having second thoughts. She took a deep breath. “Ian, are you sure you want to do this? If you’d rather not, then I totally—”
“If you want to, then so do I. When a Scot makes up his mind ...” He glanced at her.
“Okay. Just as long as you know he might not be friendly. I hope it won’t be too uncomfortable for you.”
Ian pushed back his seat, stretched his legs, and leaned back. “Don’t worry about me,” he said, closing his eyes.
Emily heaved a deep sigh. Why was he doing this? For her dad? Or for her? How typical of him to want to help.
Lord, please help the visit with Dad to go well, for Ian’s sake. Soften Dad’s heart. Maybe he’ll loosen up this time, with Ian there.
She stole a peek at Ian’s resting form. A handsome man, definitely. But the qualities that made her forget to breathe and stirred up crazy kinds of warmth came from deep beneath that handsome surface, from the things she could only see from knowing him.
His kindness and strength, his enduring love, his sacrifice for others.
She sneaked one last glance and memorized the look of his slightly parted lips as he snored softly. If he ever found it in his heart to marry again, Ian MacLean was going to make some girl very happy.
Cheeks burning, Emily fastened her eyes on the road.
Ian woke to the smell of petrol and no Emily. From the passenger window, he spotted the faded Homemade Jojos! sign he’d seen at this same station the day before. His spine tensed. He visited the lav, and on his way back to the Jeep, he scanned the lot. No big-mouthed dafties lurking about like the ones they’d met the day before.
Only yesterday?
Emily returned to the Jeep with snacks.
“I can drive now if you fancy,” Ian said.
She hesitated, then nodded. “Sure, if you don’t mind.”
As they headed east, Emily pulled drinks from a sack and offered him a choice. “I bet you’re glad this gas stop turned out different from the last one.”
Ian chose an icy bottle of root beer and focused straight ahead. “Aye.”
Emily twisted the cap off and slipped his drink into a holder. “But you handled it well.”
A snicker puffed from his nose.
“You don’t think so?”
He didn’t answer. No good would come from her knowing how ugly it could have been, had he truly handled it.
“I guess you were pretty ticked.”
“Ticked?” He hacked out a sharp laugh. “A wee bit.”
She took a few swallows of her raspberry tea and screwed the cap back on. “Okay. If you had a chance to do it over, what would you do differently?”
Without taking his eyes from the road, he shook his head. “I don’t think having the chance to do it over would make a difference.”
“Really?”
He reached for his soda and took a long drink.
“Ian, I appreciate that you tried to get them to apologize, but I’m even more thankful that no one got hurt. You stayed so calm. I mean, I know you probably didn’t feel calm, but you had a lot of self-control. It really could have been so much worse.”
You have no idea.
The glowing taillights on the truck in front of them came to a standstill. When traffic began to move, Ian inched the Jeep ahead, his shoulders tense.
Emily said no more—perhaps she’d decided to drop it.
After a few miles, traffic picked up and moved along at a good highway speed and he loosened his shoulders.
“I’d like to hear about it.”
“About what?”
“How you got a handle on anger.”
How’d you figure that one out? He glanced over and caught her smiling faintly. “Ah. You’re laughing at me again.”
“No, I’m serious. You say it could have been worse, so obviously you made a real effort, and I’m curious. Because not everyone is able or willing to do that.”
Somehow, the Jeep had suddenly gotten far too small. “I’m not sure what you want to know.”
“Have you always had that kind of control?”
Ian pulled in a deep breath. With miles of road still ahead, little hope existed for escape. His cheeks puffed with the exhale. “No.”
“You’ve never talked about this before, have you?”
“I have.” His hands gripped the wheel. “With Katy.”
“Oh. Right.” Emily looked to the passing woods.
For a while, neither one of them spoke.
Right. “It began when I was growing up. We moved a lot.”
A quarter mile passed before she responded. “Why did you move so much?”
“My da ...” Couldn’t stay sober long enough to pick road litter. “His drinking always cost him jobs, so we never stayed in one place long. I blamed him, and he knew it.”
She didn’t answer.
As he followed the curves of road that snaked through towering evergreens, he felt her waiting eyes on him. Oddly, the darkening forest, old and dense like the wooded braes behind the farm, reminded him of the night he and his da nearly came to blows.
And so he told the story, beginning with the family’s move to his grandparent’s farm. He and Claire started school, where he met Katy. At sixteen, he’d begun to stand up to his dad’s drunken tirades, which came with increasing frequency. And they went round constantly. One night, Claire begged him to leave before someone got seriously hurt. But he had to stay—because of Katy. He tried to keep out of his da’s way long enough to finish school, tried to shove the anger down, keep it under control. But that only made it worse.
One night his da told the family he’d found a job in Aberdeen and they would be moving again. Ian’s anger rose, paralyzing him. He felt settled for the first time in his life. And he was in love. Moving so far away for a job his da would lose in less than a week was stupid and unfair.
Something inside him had snapped.
Ian could still see his dad’s purple face, the spittle flying from his slack, whisky-wet lips. He could still feel the heat of his own young fury.
“All my packed-down resentment erupted, all aimed at him. I was so blind with rage, I was scared of what I might do.” I believe I could’ve killed him. Ian drew in a slow, steadying breath, but didn’t look at Emily. He couldn’t. “So I took off. I ran into the woods and didn’t stop running until I was miles away.”
“That’s good. You got out of there before anything happened. You knew you needed to do something about it.”
“Maybe. But I didn’t know what. Katy had been talking to me about Christ, but I didn’t know how much of that I really believed. I stormed through the woods and shouted some nasty things at God. I guess I wanted to see if He was listening. I wanted Him to prove He was real. So I dared God to take away all my anger.”
She stopped sipping her Snapple mid-drink. “Are you serious?”
He still could feel the wet grass soaking through his jeans as he knelt near the churchyard, rain hitting his face in the dark, no one round for miles. The scene slipped easily into his mind, like the words of a familiar song. “Then I headed back to the farm, but halfway home, God was there. I felt peace wash over me and I couldn’t move. When I thought about my dad and all the things he’d done, not a bit of anger came. Just peace. I started walking again, but then it hit me: God did exactly what I’d asked Him to do. I think—” Ian let a cluster of headlights pass while he chose his words. “I think He wanted me to know without a doubt He was real.”
“I think you’re right.” Emily’s voice softened. “In fact, I’m sure of it.”
His mind replayed things he hadn’t thought about in years. How he’d fallen to his knees, muttering incoherent thanks and promises. The look on Katy’s face when he told her. The years following that he spent devoted to prayer and Bible study.
“Thank you for telling me,” Emily said. “So what about now? Are you afraid your anger is getting out of control again?”
There were things far worse than getting angry. He didn’t answer.
“Is it your dad?”
“No. We get on now, from a distance. My parents live in Peru.”
“So whatever anger you struggle with now, does it make you doubt God or what He did for you that night?”
“No.” He shook his head firmly. God certainly had no use for a man bent on harboring a mortal grudge. “No, I don’t doubt God. He can do anything. But I believe there are things He won’t do, and I can’t blame Him for that.”
“I know one thing He won’t do,” she said softly.
He glanced at her.
“He won’t give up on you, Ian. He loves you too much.”
Ian didn’t argue, but a cold certainty sunk in, numbing his gut. He’d have to see that one to believe it.