It’s Friday! And it’s the beginning of summer!
What better way to welcome these warm, fun days than with a book about the beach? And not just any beach book… but a book about a destination wedding! (You see where this is going, don’t you?)
About a year ago, I released Destination Wedding, a story about three couples in three very different seasons of life, all gathered to celebrate marriage in Hawaii. For me, it was like revisiting the Big Island and some of my characters, and it paved the way for future stories. It’s one I can re-read even now because the jokes are still funny and the emotions are still poignant. And I love Aiden, who is always walking around with a mai tai in his hand and no clue as to what’s going on with everyone else.
If you’re looking for a great summer read (or any time, really), you should definitely try this one. But don’t take my word for it! Here’s the first chapter, just to get you started…
~Eve~
Eve Miller woke up with a smile on her face.
Why? Because she was in Hawaii. Because she was in love. Because in three days, she would be married to Adam Pearson, the most brilliant, godliest man she’d ever met.
As she laid in bed and thought about this, she could hardly keep from squealing out loud.
Mrs. Adam Pearson. Eve Pearson. Mrs. Evie Pearson. Reverend and Mrs. Adam Pearson. Adam and Eve.
That last one always got a laugh or two, just like it had back on the day she’d met him.
It had been another Preview Weekend at the seminary, and while she’d had three midterms to study for in Hebrew, Greek, and Systematic Theology (seriously, what had she been thinking when she’d signed up for those classes in the same semester?), she’d put on her student recruiter smile and pinned on her name badge. Studying was important, but so was having enough money to pay for tuition. The pay she’d get for the hours she spent answering questions for prospective students would put her pay from her weekly job as a coordinator on the campus’s conference center into overtime hours.
A worker is worthy of his wages, and Eve Miller, with her seminary girl smile, was worth that overtime.
It had been a typical Preview Weekend. The other recruiters split the students into groups for the campus tour, for the trip to each department to talk through degree requirements, and to the library to discuss the partnership they shared with other seminaries across the world so that you could, theoretically, study the actual Dead Sea Scrolls when they made their pilgrimage through the States. (You couldn’t really study them. You could look at them from where they sat behind a temperature-controlled glass case, but you couldn’t actually break out your lexicon, let your fingers trail over the parchment, and study them. Eve never clarified this for the interested students.)
From there it had been back over to the conference center where one of the theology professors was on hand to deliver a lecture on the doctrine of election, using a passage from Ephesians as his text. There had been a problem with the sound system at the very beginning, and Eve, since she was a regular employee of the conference center, had gone on stage inconspicuously to adjust some things.
She felt strange up there, as if someone was watching her. When she dared to glance behind her, she caught him staring at her.
Him. One of the prospective students, dressed down in jeans, a sweatshirt emblazoned with the name of the local college, and disheveled hair, as if he’d just woken up that morning and stumbled onto the seminary campus.
He’d been staring at her.
And he had been obvious about it. He continued to stare at her as she looked at him, then as she turned back to the sound system.
Weirdo.
As she’d finally finished up making the adjustments to the system, the professor thanked her very simply. She nodded, and as she moved to leave the stage, she’d shot another glance over at the prospective student.
Still staring.
Weirdo. Hot weirdo, actually, as she’d gotten a better look at him and certainly liked what she saw.
But still. There’d he’d been, sitting there, staring at her.
She stood there for a second longer than necessary, staring right back at him, then had left the stage, blushing.
One of the other recruiters had raised his eyebrows at her as she joined them all at the back of the room, confused by her odd behavior. Eve was usually focused all the time, always on task, and never flustered or bothered.
Oh, well, she assured herself. The weirdo from the front row would go off to his group after the lecture, she’d go off with hers, and they’d never cross paths again.
Except, of course, they did.
The student center was only so big, after all, and there hadn’t been enough seats to accommodate everyone for lunch. Eve had anticipated this and had gotten her lunch, made her way outside to the porch, and had sat down, expecting that at least a few other students would do the same when they couldn’t find seats. She would be able to chat with them, still on the clock and all, and eat her lunch at the same time.
Sure enough, someone slid down next to her. She pasted that winning seminary girl smile on her face, ready to discuss degree plans, work study jobs, and student housing and had been rendered all but speechless when she turned and faced him.
Him. The hot weirdo from the Ephesians lecture.
“Hey,” he said, grinning at her. “Okay if I sit here?”
“Um…sure,” she managed, forcing the smile to remain on her face.
What had it been? She’d dated plenty of men before. Men right there at the seminary, godly men, all pursuing ministry careers, all of them just exactly right for her…
And boring. Wow, they’d all been boring. She’d resolved that being single would be far better than being married to a man who could bore her to oblivion, a man who she couldn’t feel attracted to no matter how hard she prayed it to be so.
But this man…
There was attraction, most definitely, as illogical as it was since she didn’t know him from Adam and all. And there was interest, already, even though he hadn’t spoken more than six words to her.
He was already the most interesting man she’d ever met.
Before she’d been able to open her mouth to begin any one of her various spiels on the finer points of this fine theological institution they found themselves at, his eyes were back on her.
“Adam,” he said, holding out his hand to her.
His name was Adam.
Well, of course it was.
“Eve,” she answered, grimacing just slightly, shaking his hand.
Then, he’d smiled. Oh, he liked that a lot. Adam and Eve. Ha, ha, ha.
“Great name,” he managed, going back to his lunch, still grinning.
She took a breath, determined not to look like an idiot who could only stare at him and not do her job as a recruiter and all.
“So, Adam,” she said, wiping her mouth with her napkin, “what do you think about the seminary so far?”
A safe question. A question she asked nearly every student she met at these things.
The responses ranged from overly enthusiastic to determined, students who had made up their minds about what was next, all but ready to go ahead and sign the check for that first semester of tuition.
“Eh,” Adam said, shrugging his shoulders as he bit into his sandwich.
Not typical. Not at all.
“Eh?” she asked, feeling just a little insulted by this. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” he said, chewing quickly and swallowing, so as to smile at her more broadly, “that I’m not sure this seminary is half as reformed as I am.”
He was one of those, then. He should have appreciated that election sermon, maybe even more than he likely appreciated the book of Ephesians itself. The seminary didn’t swing to absolutes either way, leaving Scripture open for a wide range of conservative interpretations, figuring (and rightly so) that if two thousand years of theologians couldn’t agree to a Biblical answer on the doctrine, then how could they?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Adam said, glancing over at her.
Not likely.
“Tolerance, open-mindedness, being amendable to interpretations – that’s admirable and all in our truly wicked society, huh?”
Well… yeah. But…
“Just difficult,” she began, using her happy recruiter voice, “to claim that we have a definitive answer on what Scripture really says when we’re fallible humans, right?”
He nodded at this. “Except not.”
What?
He grinned at her. “You a theology student, Eve?”
“Getting my MDiv,” she said.
“With the Biblical languages?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said, just a little insulted that he’d ask her to clarify this. Who did he think she was? A girl here only for her Mrs. degree?
As if.
He grinned at her harsher tone. She’d have to dial it down a little.
“I mean, while I’m here and all, I might as well take advantage of all the course offerings that I can, right?” she said.
“Well said.”
“Thank you.”
“So, you have to be reformed if you study Scripture as it was originally written,” he said, nodding as though it was already decided.
And he was right. She was. Her theology was so conservative that she wouldn’t voice half of it out loud in some of her classes, appreciating hearing the other side of thought, not wanting to label herself as “one of those.”
“Five pointer, right?” Adam said, already knowing the answer.
“Yes,” she said. “But I’m not in anyone’s face about it. I’m not a know-it-all.”
Like you, she nearly added.
“That’s a good thing,” he said. “None of us should be know-it-alls about anything. Even though we’re the elect. Even though we have the whole of Scripture as our defense. Even though we know that God has enabled us to know Him as He really is.”
He smiled at her again.
“Maybe you are too reformed for this seminary,” she noted, going back to her lunch.
He laughed quietly at this, and she glanced over at him, smiling herself at the way his whole face lightened.
Handsome. Smart. And unassuming about it, based on the way he was dressed, on the way he’d quietly listened to the Ephesians sermon, even as others had asked questions intended more as statements to show how smart they thought they were.
Maybe the smartest people were those who didn’t have to let everyone else know it.
“Maybe,” he conceded, “but I love the thoughts that are coming from here. I’ve been reading up on the convention press the past two years, studying what’s coming out of all that’s being taught here. And I’ve gotta tell you, this place, reformed or not, is producing brilliant thinkers.”
At this, she had felt her heart kick up a beat, even more so than it had when she’d first seen him at the lecture.
Because that convention press was one that she wrote articles for on a regular basis. It was very likely that she was one of the “brilliant thinkers” he hadn’t yet named.
“I read this one piece a few weeks ago,” he said, “on Biblical inerrancy. And the writer, he made all these connections back to the book of Genesis, the serpent, and his words. Broke out the Hebrew, about how the serpent had asked Eve if God had really said what He did, compared it to the heresies of today, even in the church, when people approach the infallible word of God and say, did God really say that?” He shook his head. “Never thought about it like that until I read that guy’s article.”
That “guy” was sitting right there with him, hearing every wonderful word.
“Wow,” she managed.
“Have you read that one?” he asked her, putting down his sandwich and reaching into the backpack he carried. “I’ve got it in here if you haven’t.”
“Pretty sure I have,” Eve answered, preparing to tell him that it was her article, after all.
But he already had the magazine out, opened up to the page where the article was plastered between news on the expansion of a sister seminary and a letter to the editor regarding the ordinance of baptism and its place in the modern church.
“Here it is,” Adam said, scooting over closer to her so that she could see it as well, causing her heart to race just a little more. “And it –”
Suddenly, he was quiet. He looked at the page then back at her.
“What’s your last name, Eve?” he asked.
The answer was already there in her smile and right there on the article. “Miller,” she said.
“Wait,” he’d said, incredulous. “You’re Eve Miller, from the convention press?”
She’d written a few articles for them. Okay, so more than a few.
“Yeah,” she answered him, more than a little flattered by the appreciation in his eyes.
“Wow,” he said, smiling at her. “Doctrinally sound andbeautiful.”
Okay, she was even more than a little flattered.
They continued talking about that article, about some of her others, about the papers Adam was writing for his theology classes in college, about the future of the church, about ministry, about the glory of God…
Eve found herself wondering at what she’d ever found offensive about him because it was suddenly all good. So very, very good.
He’d skipped out on the rest of the Preview Weekend activities for the day. She’d clocked out early and taken off her recruiter name badge.
So unlike her, actually, but he… oh, he sure did seem to like her.
And the feeling was most definitely mutual.
As they’d walked the campus that afternoon, they’d discovered more commonalities. They’d both grown up in Texas. They attended the same large church. They agreed on nearly every doctrine they had covered in those hours they spent together.
Then, there had been dinner at a restaurant not too far from campus. Her studying forgotten, Adam’s plans to explore the seminary disregarded, minutes and hours spent laughing together and connecting in a way that neither of them had ever connected with anyone else.
Totally crazy. Completely nuts. Eve had known it even as they’d spent the rest of the evening together, sitting in the parlor of the girls’ dorm, talking about everything, even as the sun went down, even as it began to come up again.
“Oh, wow,” she’d said, seeing the hues in the sky turn back to an early morning pink and orange canvas. “I’ve kept you out…really late.”
He’d grinned at this. “Did you, or did I keep you out?”
Who even knew? The sparks were clearly flying both directions. It was difficult to tell where the attraction began and who it was directed towards, as Adam and Eve fell quite easily into this mutual adoration.
Completely nuts.
“What are you doing today?” he asked.
She looked at her watch, trying to be logical about this. “I’ve got church in a few hours. So do you, Adam.”
He’d just watched her. “Can I take you to breakfast?”
She was never going to get rid of him, was she?
Praise God. She was never going to get rid of him.
“This is crazy,” she said.
“I know,” he laughed. “I’m okay with crazy.”
“Maybe lunch instead?” she said, thinking that she had to get cleaned up, at least, had to get out of this recruiter outfit and all.
Besides, they had a whole lifetime after this to spend together.
Crazy.
“That works, too,” he said, picking up his backpack and slinging it gently over one shoulder.
She’d walked him out to his car, still talking, their hands brushing up against one another, even as he turned to her before opening his door.
He’d reached out and touched her face with his fingertips, and she’d felt her eyes flutter just a little.
“This is… not normal for me,” he said, smiling.
“Touring a seminary, staying up all night with one of the recruiters, and…”
Touching her, like this.
“No,” he whispered. “Just you, Eve.”
“And just you,” she whispered back. “I don’t do this with all the prospective students.”
What a thing to say. What a thing to imagine. Eve Miller, offering incentives to all the boys considering seminary studies.
Theological training, her foot.
But he’d heard her just right and had smiled even more.
“Seminary enrollment would multiply exponentially if you did.”
Oh, his words. His touch. His lips, so close as he leaned down.
“Me and you,” he’d said against her lips. “Just me and you.”
“Just like that,” she said. “Only us.”
“Like we’re the only two people on Earth. Adam and Eve, you know.”
If she’d heard it anywhere else, she’d have laughed and laughed at the cheesiness and never given another thought to the man who’d said it.
But it was Adam. Praise God, it was Adam, and as she thought about the world becoming so much simpler because it was just the two of them… well, that sounded more than fine with her.
“Yeah,” she’d whispered, even as he’d kissed her.
And he’d loved her. More and more from that day forward, through the six months they spent nearly inseparable, to the trips they took to meet one another’s parents, to the proposal, to his plans to start seminary in the fall, to the day when it all fell apart with her own parents.
Divorced. Thirty years of marriage, gone.
It had been Adam who got her through it. It had been his calm assurance that God was still good that had helped her through her grief. It had been his sworn commitment to her that had convinced her that marriage was still worth it.
It had been his enthusiastic agreement when she’d told him she just wanted to marry him now, right now, that had gotten her through it.
They’d put away their plans for a big church wedding and had decided on a destination wedding instead. Just their immediate families. Less drama with her parents, no people looking at her with sympathy because her family was falling apart, and Adam, just Adam and Eve, together in paradise.
Yes, this was why Eve woke up smiling.
That and the number on her phone.
She put it to her ear, took a breath, and managed just this. “Hey…”
“Hey, baby,” he breathed, and literally everything in her tensed in anticipation, waiting for the next words he would speak.
How could he do that? How did he have the power to do that?
Eve didn’t know, but she waited for those words, lived for them, like they were oxygen.
“Good morning,” she said, stretching in her bed, imagining him just a few doors down. “Sleep well?”
“Not really,” he said. “I was up at four. The time difference is killing me.”
She’d known to expect this and stayed up late the night before, long after Adam had left her, exhausted. She’d made it her goal to adjust to the time change quickly so that she’d be ready and alert during all the wedding festivities.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, sitting up and putting her feet to the floor. “Just been hanging out since then?”
“Yeah,” he answered, a yawn in his voice. “My parents got here about an hour ago, though, so I’ve been busy since then. Getting all their luggage in, starting all the projects my mother has for the rehearsal dinner…”
Eve thought briefly of her mother-in-law, Charity. Well, her mother-in-law to be. They’d gone over what they were both envisioning for the meal, and she’d been good to go with their suggestions. Eve wanted simple, and Charity was fine with that… to an extent. She’d embellished the simplicity in a few areas, making the whole event more ostentatious than Eve originally wanted. At this rate, the rehearsal dinner would be fancier than the wedding reception.
When they’d made the plans, though, she’d been too consumed with Adam to get too hung up on any of the details.
Until, of course, Charity had looked at the two of them as they’d sat at her kitchen table barely hearing anyone else and had said, “Glory, I can’t wait until the two of you have a real fight and finally come back down to Earth.”
Eve had been so insulted on so many different levels that she’d nearly laid into the woman. But it had been Adam’s “doesn’t know what she’s talking about, baby” that had calmed her right back down, distracted her again…
She and Adam had… well, they actually had never had a fight. God’s blessing and favor, obviously. What a ridiculous thought anyway to anticipate disagreements in the future, to say that it would bring them back “down to Earth” and all, as though having a personality conflict in a covenant marriage was normal.
Eve didn’t want normal. Normal was what her parents had, and they were done.
She and Adam were going to do better. She was going to do better.
What did Charity know anyway?
“Don’t let her wear you completely out, Adam,” she said, standing from the bed and going towards the bathroom to turn on the shower.
“Oh, I won’t,” he said. “The same goes for you and your parents. Emotionally.”
Her mother was already in Hawaii, just down the hall in her own room. Her father would be showing up that morning on an early flight, likely with his new girlfriend.
Yes. Her dad had a girlfriend.
She closed her eyes, not wanting to think about it.
“I know,” she said, going back over to her luggage to find something to wear for the busy day they had ahead. Just as she was pulling out a sundress, her eyes passed over the second suitcase, sitting open on the floor, waiting for her.
Inside were Adam’s clothes. She ran her hand along them, neatly folded and put away in the suitcase he’d packed back on the mainland. He had his own luggage back in his room for the days ahead, but he’d brought this bag to her room the first night they’d arrived in Hawaii.
The honeymoon bag. He’d left her half empty.
“We’ll only need one bag,” he’d said. “Since we’ll be staying together.”
Oh, the thrill of that. She couldn’t wait. Now, it was only a matter of days.
She was smiling as she looked at it when Adam spoke again, prompting her to turn from this treasure, Adam’s shirts, his cargo pants, his boxers.
Oh, the thrill.
“I love you so much,” he said. “We’re going to get through these next three days. No matter what our parents do.”
She took a breath, believing him and putting all of her hope in him.
He yawned very loudly on the other end of the line.
“Baby, I think I’m gonna need a nap,” he said.
And this? Was just a little irritating, as she thought of all that they had to do today, of all that she had to face in a couple of hours when her dad was going to show up with his floozy. If Adam had just stayed up late last night, like she had, like she’d told him to, he would be better prepared for all that was up ahead.
“Hey,” Adam said, interrupting her thoughts.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“Come to the balcony,” he said, and she could hear the grin in his voice.
So, she made her way over there, the sundress clutched in her hand, her phone to her ear, and a smile on her lips, the earlier irritation all but forgotten now.
And there he was, on the beach, just outside the balcony. Close enough that she could see his lips move as he talked.
“There you are,” he said, grinning up at her.
“Hey, you,” she said, smiling down at him.
“Just wanted to see you,” he said.
She leaned over the railing, concluding that everything would be okay now.
“I love you,” she whispered, and she watched him mouth the same.
~Erin~
Erin Miller continued meticulously checking the wedding dress, layer by layer, inch by inch, for tears, smudges, and any other harm that could have befallen the exquisite gown on its trip across the Pacific. She’d been at it most of the morning, along with a long list of other tasks, determined that of all that she hadn’t gotten right this year for Evie’s sake, she would get this right.
It was a labor of love to do this when everything in Erin just wanted to close herself off from the rest of the world and be alone.
That’s how motherhood was, though. Sacrificing yourself for the good of your children, whether by staring at a wedding dress all morning, staying up late when they were sick as children, attending every cheerleading competition and soccer game, spending hours on homework, paying for everything, putting up with a philandering husband who just couldn’t keep it in his pants because what would it do to the children if their mother left their father while they were still young…
Erin released the breath she’d been holding.
God help you, Charlie, if you ruin this for Evie.
The thought was a prayer, one of many that she’d been uttering in her heart the entire trip out to Hawaii, knowing that soon he would be here, too. God help him, because she just might kill him with her bare hands if he ruined his daughter’s wedding.
Like she had at so many different points in the whirlwind engagement and the plans Adam and Eve had made for their destination wedding, she found herself thinking of her own marriage.
Charlie had ruined that, too.
The trouble had started early on.
Typical story. Preacher’s daughter, off to college, not even realizing that her faith was shallow because it had never really been her own. Met a boy the first semester who had all the right answers about faith and grace and loving God and shared her shallow faith. She was smitten, overcome by the emotions, and let him into her heart.
There were a lot of standards she had because that’s what she was supposed to have, but they’d been tested in college. The greatest evidence that her standards had been just that, standards, and not the fruit of a heart that belonged solely to Christ, was that she’d found Charlie appealing in the first place.
He had all the right answers, but he didn’t live what he said he believed.
Neither did she, honestly. Not until it got really bad, not until there had been more than a few affairs, not until she became hopeless and clung to the Jesus of her youth, who she began to know, really know, for the first time in her life.
It had been during that season that she’d begun to feel apathy towards Charlie. Where he’d once thrilled her, she found herself glad that he spent late nights away. She was busy raising their family, keeping up appearances, and convincing herself that some mistakes did indeed cost everything.
Marriage had been a mistake.
She’d thought it on that night years ago, back when the kids were young, when she’d considered divorce.
How could she go through with it? She wasn’t sure. She was a stay-at-home mom, so there were doubts that she could support herself after having been out of the workforce for so long. Charlie was a deacon in their church, so there were misgivings about showing him to be a fraud with his indiscretions. She had picked him after all, so there were hesitations in letting her pride take such a great hit by admitting that it had been a mistake.
And there was a still small voice telling her that marriages could be saved. Men and women could be saved.
Preacher’s daughter, after all.
Charlie hadn’t known her thoughts that night when he’d come in late. He’d kept a coach’s schedule, with practice long after the night sky had darkened. Erin suspected that not all of the late nights could be attributed to time in the field house and to nights spent at away games, but she’d stopped looking closely at his schedule, long since past the point of having unconfirmed suspicions.
She’d caught him before. There had been repentance. Promised changes.
And then, he’d done it again. And again.
They’d been on the upswing of the cycle on that particular night when he’d come home with a smug, satisfied look on his face. She’d been working at the kitchen table, totaling up items on their budget, making sure they had enough saved to make the next payment on Caleb’s braces, the gymnastics camp that Abby was going to go to that summer, and the large selection of book fair books that Evie had picked, begging her mother to buy them all because she would read every single one of them. (Likely within the week.)
Charlie had come in wearing his usual coaching clothing. A T-shirt with the high school’s name and mascot emblazoned on the front, a pair of track pants, and running shoes, sweaty enough that she was certain he’d run as much as the student athletes.
She’d admired how fit he was when they first met. It had been one of the most appealing things about him back then, second to his personality, which was one of those that made everyone around him feel like the most important person in the world. She’d been smitten with that personality… and the way his body was finely chiseled, cut and tight, just exactly right.
Based on the way he hummed a little tune as he stood in front of their fridge without even acknowledging her on that night so long ago, Erin had made the foregone conclusion that someone else was admiring that body, too. It certainly wasn’t her, as she and Charlie hadn’t been intimate for months. Which came first? The lack of intimacy or the lack of fidelity? Charlie’s indiscretions all ran together so closely that it was difficult to tell. He cheated, she withdrew, he repented, she warmed up gradually, only to find out that he was cheating again, on and on and on.
Exhausting.
Erin had been checking their finances that night for her children, of course, but there had been another reason.
Could she leave him? Could she take the house, take the kids, and live off of half of what they’d saved, half of what he made as the athletic director? When he was a coach, it was an impossibility, and she’d been much too proud back then to let it happen.
With the promotion, though, he’d been in a better place financially. They’d been in a better place financially.
As Charlie sat down at the table that night, a drink in hand, she’d looked up, wondering over her options even as she frowned at him.
“Late night, huh?”
He shrugged. “No different than most nights, Erin. Surprised you noticed.”
Yeah, right.
“Caleb has a soccer game tomorrow night,” she murmured. “And Abby’s got dance. I can’t be in two places at once.”
He nodded, taking a drink. “I’ll be at the game,” he said. “Want me to get Evie from Girl Scouts?”
He’d remembered Evie had Girl Scouts, at least.
But he’d not thought through it all. Typical.
“How can you get Evie when you’ll have to get Caleb to the field?” she asked, still looking over the finances.
“I can get someone to pick her up and bring her to me,” he said softly.
And at this, Erin had dropped her pen to the table and shot him a look.
She could guess who the someone might be.
Not specifically but generally. In the past, he’d gone for a teacher at school. A young teacher who he flirted with mercilessly in the hallways between classes, who he always had to go and talk with during lunch breaks about lesson plans, who somehow ended up being easily coerced into spending time alone with him, until his wife found out, of course.
Then, there was a parent of a student who’d been failing world history, the class that Charlie taught. Erin remembered being thankful that he’d been sleeping with a parent of a student and not the student herself. There had also been a woman at one of the last churches they’d been attending. Another lonely stay-at-home mom, with a husband deployed to the Middle East. The gall that Charlie had, doing what he’d done, not only to his family but to a war hero’s family.
Erin thought about this as he’d sat there and made this offhand comment about having someone else pick Evie up.
No way. No way on God’s green earth was Charlie’s newest slut getting anywhere near Evie.
“I don’t think so,” she’d said. And it was this, along with the memory of all the other times she’d felt this way, that had caused her to finally say it. “I want a divorce.”
Charlie had choked on his drink, so shocked to hear this.
“Because I was going to get one of the coach’s wives to pick her up from Girl Scouts?” he sputtered.
“So it’s a coach’s wife now?” she asked, thinking that this was yet another kind to add to the list.
“Erin,” he said, putting his drink down and looking at her, really looking at her. “There isn’t anyone. I told you I was done, and…”
He’d let out a long breath, and for a moment, she’d believed him. It was never easy to talk herself into believing him, but she tried for her kids’ sake over and over again. Even the possibility on that hard night so many years ago had her holding her tongue about divorce.
For a moment, at least.
“It won’t last,” she spat out. “It never does.”
“Nothing’s going on,” he declared, reaching for her hand.
But she’d pulled it away. “I meant your faithfulness. It never lasts.”
“I know,” he said. “But I’m trying. Because I want this to work. Man, Erin, if you leave me now, it’s going to ruin everything.”
She hadn’t known what he was talking about, but he’d not given her a chance to ask before he was telling it all.
“They’ve offered me an administrative job,” he said. “Vice principal.”
Not as great as athletic director in their small Texas town. She was about to tell him that it was a step down when he spoke up again.
“And I’m told if I go back to school, get a graduate degree…well, there’s more down the line.”
More.
More stability. More income. More eyes watching him, keeping him on the straight and narrow.
There was honesty in his eyes that night. Could he change?
She’d tentatively hoped that he could.
“I don’t know,” she said, her poker face in place. “I don’t trust you.”
“You leave me, and my career here is shot,” he said. “And what good will that do either of us?”
There had been truth to that.
So, she’d stayed. Charlie had been faithful in the time it took him to get that degree, to climb that ladder, and to secure a position they’d never dreamt possible.
For a while, it was like it had been at the beginning. She’d loved him with reservation, but she’d been reminded of why she loved him. She’d begun to look forward to the future, thinking that Charlie had finally settled down, hoping that it meant their empty nest, which had come upon them so quickly, would be a joy for them both.
But then, there had been another woman.
And another.
Their children had been grown, and Charlie had gone back to the childish man she’d covenanted herself to, back before she knew any better.
Here she was in Hawaii, a place Charlie had told her he’d take her some day, back when they were young college students, dreaming of a future together.
But now, she was all alone.
All alone, struggling to feel any happiness for her daughter because she’d stopped believing in love and marriage.
“Oh, Evie,” she sighed, tears in her eyes as she continued smoothing down the dress. “I’m so sorry.”
Sorry that her parents couldn’t have given her better. Sorry that her parents were like they were.
Sorry that even now, it would be a trial for the two of them to be in the same room together.
But it had to be done. Erin knew it even as the knock on the door came, at just the moment she’d known it would.
3:00pm, his flight would land in Kona. Rental car to pick up at the airport, on the road at 3:15. To the resort by 3:30.
3:29.
Punctual. He was that, now that they were no longer married.
She gave the dress one last nod and went to the door to let him in.
And there he was, standing there with apology already in his eyes.
She fought against every bitter thought, every unrealized hope, and every hurt, even as she couldn’t help but take in a shuddering breath at the very sight of him.
Caleb, Abby, and Evie all looked so much like him. Like he’d spit them from his mouth, little copies of himself. It had been a fact she’d jokingly bemoaned back before he’d become a cheater, how none of her was in any of them. Like you reproduced yourself and never needed me at all, Charlie.
Oh, the thought.
“Charlie,” she said, stopping herself from stepping forward, reaching for his hand…doing much of anything.
The natural inclination to do it wasn’t because she wanted to do these things, necessarily. Not because there was any affection left for him.
It was just what you did.
Or what she had done, all those years they’d been married but falling apart.
“Erin,” he said, nodding at her name, acknowledging the gap between them.
It had been a few weeks since they’d seen one another. They’d agreed to meet up with Adam and Eve, to discuss this very trip, how the costs would be handled, and the deposits for it all. Charlie had written the checks without Evie even asking, and Erin had bitten back words about how she would pay it, knowing that it was Charlie’s to do anyway.
And the money she was making as a long-term substitute, using a thirty year old degree she’d never used before? Like she could afford it comfortably. She’d used her half of the divorce settlement to pay off the house, her car, and to finance this trip. That on top of all the lawyers’ fees had taken care of most of it.
Leave it to Charlie to pay for the wedding.
He’d certainly stepped up and done that. Probably made his newest girl angry.
“You came alone?” she asked, thinking of the last girl, the one who had given him enough reason to finally leave three months ago, to do what he’d been hinting at for years.
Trista.
Divorce papers finalized, even as Erin had told her church friends what she was supposed to tell them. That this wasn’t the end. That she was praying for Charlie to come back to Christ, to live his life the right way, to be faithful, to reconcile…
She wasn’t praying, though. Oh, she’d given it a half-hearted try at the beginning, when she’d seen what the loss of her marriage had done to her adult children.
She could see them in her mind’s eye even now, gathered in the opulent home that Charlie’s superintendent position had afforded them, sitting there as she and Charlie told them that it was over.
Caleb, standing in his scrubs, a day’s worth of beard already forming on his chin, exhaustion in his eyes from his own life and his work, hearing his father say that he was moving out. Abby, a tissue in her hand, tears on her face, nine months along in her latest pregnancy, and still just a child, weeping as her mother told her that this was for the best.
And Evie, with a brand new engagement ring on her hand, hopelessness in her expression, as they told her that marriage didn’t always work out.
Erin had prayed there at the beginning for reconciliation because of the children. Because of their disappointment, because of their tears, because she somehow knew that they wouldn’t be unaffected on a very deep level by what was happening.
But after a while, she stopped praying for God to change Charlie’s heart.
Marriage had been hard, and perhaps this was God’s way of releasing her.
So, divorce papers signed and Trista in his life, with Erin hoping, in some strange part of her heart, that he would move on. That he would marry, that reconciliation would be forever lost, and she could get on with her life.
Not that she would ever remarry.
Just that she would be free from the burden of knowing that she should pray for her marriage to be mended even though her heart was not in it anymore.
This is what years of infidelity had done to her.
And Charlie, too, who didn’t look like the confident young athlete she’d fallen in love with back when she’d been so naive.
“Yeah, I’m alone,” he answered, looking for permission to finally enter the room.
She stood back, opening the door wider, and watched as he stepped in, his eyes finding the dress almost immediately.
“Oh, Evie,” he sighed, taking it in, likely imagining their youngest like she did, lying on the couch with her bony little girl legs up on the cushions, her hair so long it touched the floor, a book in her hands, and her chewing on her lip, like she’d done from the time she was in the crib until… well, even now.
Just a little girl. A little girl who needed this weekend to be perfect.
“What do you mean you’re alone?” Erin asked, telling herself that she was only asking to make sure that there would be no unexpected drama on Evie’s day. Trista, showing up late to the ceremony. Trista, pitching some sort of fit over the cost. Trista, being who Erin was certain she must be, given all the truly bad thoughts she’d had about the woman over the last few months.
“I’m alone,” Charlie clarified, turning around to face her. “I ended things a couple of months ago.”
Well, good. Not that she cared either way, honestly, but this would eliminate any drama for Evie.
Honestly. That’s the only reason she cared.
But she still had to ask.
“Well, what happened?” she asked. “I thought this one might be a keeper. You know, since you threw away your marriage for her.”
Charlie watched her with sadness. Ugh, put on, manufactured sadness. All those times he’d done what he did, there had been this fake sadness. Or, in those odd times when it had been genuine, it had been sadness that he’d been caught and that he had to endure her tears and her anger.
“I didn’t throw it away for her,” he said softly. “I threw it away because I was selfish, because I loved myself more than I loved anyone else.”
True. Except…well, that sounded like he was taking the blame. Genuinely taking the blame.
“No one loves you like you love yourself, Charlie,” she said, surprised that she was still angry when she had been certain that all she’d been was done.
“Erin,” he said softly, “I was wrong.”
And there it was. What he always said.
How many times had she heard that? Too many to count. And every time, she’d let him back in, convincing herself that he would be better, knowing in her heart that he wouldn’t really change. But she’d let him in every time because that was the good thing to do, the right thing to do, what Christian women were supposed to do.
She’d heard it before.
“And,” Charlie continued, “I’ve trusted Christ. I’m living for Him. I was pretending all those years, but now…it’s different. I’m saved, Erin. I’m a new man.”
And this?
Well, she’d never heard this before.
~Caleb~
Caleb Miller scanned the very limited menu at the bar, resigning himself to the sad truth that he wouldn’t be eating dinner tonight.
Or breakfast. He looked at his watch. What time was it back home now anyway? Evie probably had her reasons for planning a wedding in Hawaii, but he’d silently bemoaned the idea when she’d sprung it all on them during the last family get together, her hand in Adam’s, her fiancé, telling them all that it would be great.
Great. He’d looked over at the water as his plane had landed in Kona a few hours ago but had only let his gaze linger on the refreshing and calming sight for just a moment. Then, it was back to his phone, to texts about work, to concerns about patients, to thoughts about all that he couldn’t leave behind in Los Angeles.
She’d died. Just last week, all of five years old, and he’d stood there before her parents, ready to give a clinical explanation as to why something as innocent as bruising, as drowsiness, had led to this conclusion.
Cancer wasn’t innocent, though. It wasn’t manageable either or responsive to the chemicals he was authorized to pump into his tiny patients’ bodies, willing it to do his bidding and kill all that was wrong.
Sometimes, it was just too late. Sometimes, the cancer was swift and unexpected.
Dr. Miller always had an answer, though. Or at least, he had, until last week, when he’d stood before that tiny girl’s parents, lost his composure, and wept.
There’s a first time for everything. That was definitely the first time that had happened. He hoped it would be the last, because nothing says professionalism and capability like a weeping pediatric oncologist.
His chief of medicine had said that perhaps this trip was providential, given at just the right time.
“You need a vacation, Dr. Miller,” he’d said. “A breather and all.”
Caleb had reminded himself of this and had turned off his phone, just as soon as his cab had pulled up in front of the fancy resort where his sister would be saying her vows in three short days.
He’d gone by to see his mother, to witness the insanity that was Evie’s destination wedding, as they’d had bolts of tulle and ribbons and all kinds of crazy girly things spread all over her hotel room. Adam’s mother was there with them, sorting things out alongside them, and after about an hour of listening to that chatty woman go on and on and on, Caleb had excused himself with plans to go to his own room, where he’d already dropped off his luggage.
On the way there, though, he stopped by the hotel bar hoping to find something to eat, bypassing the fancy restaurant where he didn’t want to sit at a table by himself, looking every bit as lonely as people assumed he was, much as his mother probably assumed he was as well.
She had been like typical mothers, telling him that she wanted him to meet someone, get married, and have someone to call family. She hadbeen like that, but during these last six months, she’d had nothing at all to say about marriage, likely because her own had fallen apart. No support groups or divorce care groups for grown adults whose parents, after decades of marriage, had decided to give it up, which was a shame because his sisters had certainly seemed to need it.
Caleb didn’t need it, though. He was too consumed with his own demons to worry about his parents’ issues, even though his sisters chalked his quiet attitude about it all and his solitary approach to dealing with it as greater evidence of his loneliness.
He wasn’t lonely, though. He had plenty of voices always playing in his head, plenty of patients, plenty of their parents, all of them calling for his attention, all of them yelling at him –
“No, thank you.”
He lifted his head at the sound of the voice. Feminine, soft, yet insistent still.
And wavering, just slightly.
His eyes found the source immediately. A woman. A very pretty woman, with long brown hair, done up in elaborate curls that fell halfway down her back. Or perhaps that was natural, unlike the heavy makeup that she wore, that Caleb could tell was smudged even from where he sat a few feet away.
Most men wouldn’t be able to tell these things. But he had two sisters, so he’d been forced into the knowledge on such subjects more than once during his childhood. Thank you, Abby and Evie.
And because of Abby and Evie, he was also more protective than most men. And as the mystery brunette frowned at the man who stood much too close to her at the bar, he felt that side of himself come out a little more.
“Come on,” the man said, as loud and obnoxious as the Hawaiian shirt he was wearing. “Live a little, sweetheart. You’re on vacation in paradise.”
“Yeah, maybe I’m not on vacation,” she said, trying to turn away. The sundress she was wearing suggested otherwise, but the stress in her tired eyes gave some credence to her words.
She saw Caleb staring at them and glanced away from him with a tighter frown.
Not helpless, this one.
But he was a gentleman. A good guy. A guy that had no idea what exactly was going on but could tell when a woman didn’t want a man paying her attention.
He could fix this.
“I’ll get you another drink,” the man said, just as Caleb walked past him, settling onto the stool on the other side of the woman.
“Hey,” he said, leaning down towards her, “sorry that it took me so long to get back to you.”
She glanced over at him with a question in her eyes. A question that she didn’t ask as she realized what he was doing and moved just a fraction of an inch closer to him.
Trusting, this one.
He just had one of those faces. Evie had always said it was one of the best things about him. “You radiate Jesus, Caleb,” she’d said a year ago, as she’d visited him in LA, coming by his hospital to pick him up for dinner after yet another long shift, as he’d told her about the latest kid he was treating. “Your patients’ parents take one look at you and trust you because you just have that kind of face, that kind of heart.”
He’d brushed this off, telling her that it was impossible to make any kind of correct conclusions based on someone’s face. Serial killers weren’t always scary looking after all, and con artists looked trustworthy.
But he wondered at the truth of what his sister had said as the woman at the bar looked at him.
“I’ve been waiting for a very, very long time,” she said, exhaustion in the statement.
“Who’s this?” the obnoxious tourist bellowed.
“My boyfriend,” she said, lying with convincing poise. “This is my boyfriend.”
“Thought you said you weren’t here on vacation,” the man kept on.
“No, I said maybeI’m not on vacation,” she corrected him, holding up a manicured fingernail, right in his face. “And I’m not. We’re here because we’re getting married.”
Convincing liar, this one. And elaborate.
“And I already said no to the extra drink, thank you very much, because I have a boyfriend, and,” she bellowed rather dramatically, “I have a Marchesa dress hanging up in our suite right this minute that I have to fit into, and I sure can’t pour myself into it if I keep consuming calories with idiots like you down here in this bar. Do you even know how much I spent on that dress?”
The man held up his hands and began backing away, obviously sensing that this was going nowhere.
“Well, do you?!” she asked. “Sure will be a waste of my hard-earned money to buy that gorgeous dress and never ever get a chance to wear it…”
And at this, tears began to stream down her face.
Whoa.
“Wow, lady, are you crazy or something?”
This was her breaking point, apparently. “If you keep talking, I swear, my boyfriend” she jerked her thumb over at Caleb “is going to kick your butt all the way back to the mainland!”
This is where being a gentleman got him. Good move, Dr. Miller, with your heart for Jesus and all.
“Not necessary,” the other man said, backing away at last and leaving them alone.
Caleb watched him leave, glad that it had worked out like this, then looked back to see the woman wiping her eyes with a bar napkin.
“Thanks,” she murmured softly.
“No problem,” he said, grabbing the bartender’s attention and getting something for himself. He turned to her. “You want anything else?”
At this, she released a large breath. “Oh, you’re one of those, too, huh?”
Not at all. Maybe she was crazy.
“Uh… no,” he managed. “Sorry I asked.”
Almost as sorry as he was that he’d come over to her in the first place.
She sighed, her head in her hands. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “Crazy night. Crazy week. Crazy year.”
Crazy woman.
But he’d been having a crazy night, crazy week, crazy year himself, given all the stress of what he’d left behind at the hospital.
“I hear you,” he noted, taking a drink.
Neither one of them said anything for a long moment.
“You seem nice,” she finally offered. “Rushing in to help me like that. Which I appreciate.”
He nodded. “No problem.”
“I’m Amelia,” she said, holding her hand out to him. “And you are…?”
“Caleb,” he said, shaking her hand as well.
“Here on vacation?” she asked. “And, no, I’m not trying to be creepy like all those guys who’ve been bombarding me tonight.”
“Well, good,” he smiled. “Glad you’re not creepy.”
“Well, not too creepy,” she managed, attempting a smile for him.
“And not here on vacation,” he offered her. “I’m here for a wedding.”
The mention of a wedding made her features cloud over as she watched him. His mind went back to that dress she’d been talking about, wondering if the two were connected.
He took another drink, thinking that he should probably ask her why she was here, hoping that it had nothing to do with that dress, her tears, or anything that was making her act crazy, quite frankly.
But before he could even swallow, she turned around in her seat and looked at him point-blank.
“He didn’t want to have sex with me,” she said, causing Caleb to choke just a little on his drink. “I know, right?”
“I’m sorry, what?” Caleb continued to cough, trying to clear his throat. “What did you just say?”
“My fiancé,” Amelia moaned, her head back in her hands. “Ex-fiancé. It’s been two months, Caleb. Two months since he broke it off, and I’ve been spending most of that time detailing all of the warning signs. He wasn’t interested in wedding plans, which most men aren’t. He didn’t want to get to know my family, which was hurtful. He was vague about things, which seemed shady. And he didn’t want to have sex with me, which was totally weird, right?”
He nodded, not knowing what to say to this. So much information, just handed over to a stranger at the bar. Where to even begin in sorting out any of it?
“Not like I was offering or anything, you know. And I thought the fact that he was so indifferent to me physically was because he was a good guy, because he was living for Jesus. Or so he said,” she murmured. Then, she turned to him. “But even so, Caleb, perfect gentlemen still want to make love to the women they’re engaged to, right? Find it difficult to wait and all, I would think. Get all caught up during late night kisses and have to talk themselves down, right?”
Oh, boy. Caleb wouldn’t know from recent experience since he was married to his work and all, but he could remember a girlfriend in college, how he’d felt, how it had taken everything in him at the time to stay true to his convictions.
Yes, even godly men were tempted.
“Yeah,” he nodded, offering her this much, at least. “It’s… yeah.”
“Yeah!” she exclaimed, draining her glass. “And I’m looking back, and the signs were there. Something just wasn’t right! There had to have been other women. Or…” She took in a shuddering breath. “Other men?”
Caleb’s eyes widened at this. Well, that would be something else entirely.
“Surely, though,” she said, whispering it, “if that had been the case, he would have been more into the wedding plans, right?”
“Surely,” Caleb said, thinking this was a huge stereotype but knowing it probably wasn’t the right time to point it out to her.
“It wasn’t that,” she said, shaking her head. “Because God knows I saw him watching other women when we were together. I mean, God knows all about it because He and I talked about it again and again, about how I wondered if I could keep that man happy once we said I do, and…”
Caleb thought of his own parents for a moment and heard his mother in these words, praying through her marriage troubles, thinking these things about herself because of her man’s infidelity.
“Is it me?” Amelia asked, lowering her voice. “Am I hideous and just don’t know it? Do you look at me and want to make out with me?”
Wow. Just… wow. And eww, he sure wasn’t thinking anything like that now that he’d seen his mother in her.
He closed his eyes to help move past the very thought.
“Well, I don’t know you that well,” he said, opening his eyes slowly.
“Oh, I know that,” she said. “But if we did. If we were dating… would you?”
She was beautiful. He didn’t have a type, apart from the godly, faith-filled, sweet-spirited type. A woman that would understand what he couldn’t fully understand himself, why it was so hard to leave his work at work, why his heart hurt so much after all the loss he’d felt. A woman who could bring him joy, remind him of God’s faithfulness when he needed more faith. A woman that would be a comfort.
A woman that would need him to do the same for her.
He didn’t know anything about this woman. Well, he knew a few things, thanks to her just laying it all out there like that, but he didn’t really know her.
But he knew what she needed to hear, so he offered it.
“It wasn’t you,” he said.
“That’s what he said,” she cried softly, closing her eyes. “I should be over it. But no matter how hard I pray or how much I ask God to take it from me, I keep coming back to it, picking it up over and over again, wondering how it all went wrong.”
Caleb understood that. He couldn’t leave his work at Jesus’s feet either.
He felt an odd kinship with this odd woman.
“And then, there’s that really explensive dress,” she said. Then, she crinkled up her nose. “Extensive. That’s not right. Expensive!” She slapped her hand down on the bar. “That’s what I meant!”
For the first time since he’d sat down, Caleb noticed the obvious.
She’d had too much to drink.
Way to go, Dr. Miller. (To be fair, his patients were kids with cancer, so the signs of inebriation and high blood alcohol levels weren’t ones that he saw all that often.)
Sure enough, she gestured for the bartender to bring her another drink.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Caleb asked, putting his hand on the top of her glass without thinking anything of it. She was clearly tipsy. Okay, so more than tipsy.
“Oh, honey,” she said, an unmistakable drawl coming out as she said it, “that was only my first glass. Which reminds me.” She bent over to open up her purse. “I need another pill.”
“Pills?” he asked, his concern growing. Pills. A glass of wine. Depending on what those pills were, she would be in a whole lot of trouble if she kept on. She was too small as it was, making the alcohol alone troublesome. Add to it the chemistry and the possible reactions, the side effects –
“Move your hand, cowboy,” she said, nodding to her glass, the second pill already on her tongue.
“You don’t need any more,” he said. It wasn’t his place to tell a stranger this, but he was a doctor, after all. He’d taken an oath about looking out for the health and wellbeing of others. And beyond that, he was a servant of Christ, compelled by the love of God to look out for the helpless and hopeless, which is clearly what she was –
“Oh, fine then,” she said. “I can take it dry.”
“No, Amelia, wait –”
And he held his hand out in front of her mouth, ready to tell her to spit it out, knowing what she had in mind to do, but she was too quick and swallowed it.
“What was that?” he asked, panic in his voice.
“That was me showing off my skills,” she said, still trying to shoo his hand off her glass. “I can pop those pills any which a way. Drink or no drink. Though my mouth feels chalky now –”
“No, what kind of pill was it?” he asked again.
“Motion sickness,” she said, waving him away. “Dramma… drama. I don’t know.”
He took her glass and moved it to his other side. “Hey,” he said to the bartender. “Can I get some water? And you,” he said, turning to her. “Can I see your pill bottle?”
“Sure can, and I guess water will work, too,” Amelia said, sighing, handing it over to him.
He read it, his pulse speeding up, thinking of the possible side effects. Did she not know what she’d done?
“You can’t have alcohol with this,” he said. “This is not Dramamine. It’s stronger.”
“Really?” she asked, grinning as though this was funny. “Well, like I told you, I normally don’t. Not a drinker. Just thought it might help me loosen up.”
Not a drinker. No tolerance for the alcohol at all. This made the effects even scarier.
He should have seen it. No filter on her words. Weepiness. Now, grinning like she was.
“Amelia, are you staying in this hotel?” he asked, already making a plan in his mind.
“I am,” she sighed, the sadness from earlier back. “I’m a travel agent to the stars, you know. Book huge vacation packages for the rich and famous back in LA. Have booked this very hotel so many times that they covered all my bills when I booked a room for myself.”
“Nice,” Caleb said, reaching for his wallet, intending to pay their tabs.
“All my bills, Caleb,” she said. “I’ve got this. Well, they’ve got this. What are you doing?”
Getting her purse. Getting her pill bottle back in there. Getting ready to get her to her room and out of this bar because she wasn’t capable of making any good decisions on her own. Getting her somewhere where he could do a better assessment of her health and make sure those pills weren’t going to do any lasting damage.
“Let me walk you to your room,” he said.
She blinked at him, considering this for a long moment. He prayed for a moment that she would show enough good sense, enough clarity to tell him no, that she wasn’t letting a strange man walk her to her room. If she did, he’d still be concerned, but at least that would mean that the pills and alcohol hadn’t clouded her judgment.
“Why not?” she shrugged.
No such luck.
She let him take her out of the bar, over to the elevators, and up to the very fancy room on the top floor, where she had to try three different times to open the door with the key card, given how much her hands were shaking.
“This is a suite,” he said, looking around as he held her in his arms, given how much she was slumping now, as that second pill began to hit her system.
He considered taking her into the bathroom, insisting that she try to vomit…
“I know,” she said, leaning against his chest. “Kickbacks from work. Book myself in the cheap room then they upgrade me to their finest when they hear who I am. So that I’ll recommend it to my clients. Book them for the same place and all.”
“Surely you don’t need this much space, though,” he murmured, slowly walking her in, resolving that he wouldn’t make her get sick, determining that they’d just wait it out, however long it took for the alcohol to wear off.
An hour or two? Maybe?
“No, my brother is coming up,” she said. “Should be here tonight actually. Will probably get onto me good when he sees that I’ve gotten myself in the state I’m in with a stranger.” She blinked at him. “Wow. I’m drugged. And I let a guy from the bar come up to my room. That was a stupid move.”
“I’m technically not in your room, since this is a suite, and we’re in the living room,” Caleb said, thinking the same thing. “And I didn’t drug you. You did that yourself.”
“Did do that myself,” she grinned. “But it’s not safe. Me trusting you like this. And telling you everything about my personal life.”
It wasn’t. He’d get onto his own two sisters good if they ever put themselves into a position like this.
He remembered all that she’d said before, about praying, about laying things down with God, and he knew the truth that would reassure her, even in her tipsy state.
“I’m a good guy,” Caleb said, helping her down onto the couch, sitting next to her and handing her the bottle of water from the coffee table, uncapping it as he did so. “Love Jesus. Would never dishonor Him by treating you with anything but complete respect.”
She sighed at this. “Good.” She glanced over him quickly. “I mean, that’s weird that you’d say it like that and all. Most guys… not so much. You sound like my dad.”
“Drink some of that,” he said, glancing at his watch, noting the time, calculating a couple of hours when things might be better. “And your dad sounds like a good guy.”
“Pastor Pearson,” she said, taking a sip. “That’s my dad. Not my brother. Both ministry guys. John Pearson. Adam Pearson.” She sighed. “Pastorssssss Pearsonnnnnnssssseeeeessss. Plural.”
At this, Caleb took in a sharp breath.
Adam Pearson.
Evie’s Adam.
This was Evie’s sister-in-law. Or would be her sister-in-law, if she survived the drugs and alcohol.
She would. He would make certain that she would.
He looked over at her, wondering if the water was doing any good.
And as she closed her eyes and put her arm over her face, she muttered, “Glory, you’re cute.”
Want to find out what happens next? Get your copy of Destination Wedding here!
Jenn Faulk 