A Love Worth Waiting For and Heaven Knows (15 page)

I
'
m late.
Late, late, late. Julie tossed a banana and a container of yogurt into her book bag. No time to cook breakfast. No time to pack a lunch. With the way her feet were dragging, and the new snowfall, she'd be lucky to get to school before her kids did.

Okay, keys? Check. Wallet? Check. Lights off? Check. Iron unplugged… She leaned around the corner to peer through the laundry room door. Check. Jacket? There it was, slung over the back of the chair, right where she left it after coming home from the ski trip.

She rushed through the back door, zipping her jacket as she went, wading through ankle-deep snow. There was a familiar green pickup parked to one side of her driveway, a plow attached to the front end.

There was Granddad shuffling through the snowfall, away from her open garage door. “I got your truck warming up. You're normally long gone by now.”

She kissed his cheek. “I'm way behind this morning. You shouldn't be here clearing my drive. I have my own plow, you know.”

“Keeps an old cowboy like me busy.” He winked, jamming his hands into his coat pockets. “Did you have a good time on that skiing trip?”

“The best time.” It hurt too much to think about. “What about you? Getting married next week. Are you nervous?”

“After all these years of bein' alone? I'm lookin' forward to it.” He knuckled back his Stetson. “You have a good day, now.”

“Want to come over for supper?”

“I'm eating at Nora's.”

“Sure you are. I'm going to have to get used to that.” She sprinted into her garage where her truck was waiting, the heater almost blowing tepid air.

She put the vehicle in gear and backed out of the garage. Alone, driving down the country road, the realization dawned. She was on her way to work. Her life would go on as it had. Nothing had changed. There was work and friends, and Sunday dinner with her family after church.

The only difference in her life was a big, yawning emptiness in her soul.

Her mother had left. Each man Julie committed her heart to changed his mind. Over the span of a lifetime, it was a message she heard loud and clear. But had she listened to it?

No. She'd gone right ahead and given her heart away a final time. She'd known better. She knew how it was going to turn out if she fell in love with Mr. Wrong.

And now look at her. Crying on the way to work when she could have protected herself. Could have turned down Noah's offer to go to Colorado. Could have turned away from his kiss. She could have thrown away his flowers instead of putting them in a vase in the middle of her table. Because a part of her couldn't stop wishing. Still.

Pulling to the side of the road, she let the pain wash over her, the horrible grief that broke like a dam. And she couldn't stop it. She didn't even try.

 

“Noah?” Kate rapped on the desk. “Earth to Noah. Did you want me to fax the documents?”

“Sure.” He shook his head, realizing he'd been staring off into space. Again. He couldn't seem to keep his mind on anything.

The truth was, not even work was absorbing enough to distract him from the loneliness. It couldn't disguise the truth anymore. He was lonely and unhappy and a coward. He loved Julie. He couldn't stop thinking about her, couldn't stop day-
dreaming about her and replaying in his mind every second of every minute he'd spent with her.

“I'll cover your meeting in Washington tomorrow.” Kate, efficient as always, tapped on her small handheld computer, studying the screen. “Your notes are thorough, as always. I'll drop you an e-mail, let you know how it went. Hope your procedure goes well tomorrow.”

“Thanks.” It was hard, knowing tomorrow would be a day of reckoning.

He was ready. There wasn't much he could do but face it head-on. And if he was scared, well, he knew whatever happened, he would be okay. His life, as it always had been, was in the Lord's hands.

There were last-minute calls to make. Loose ends to tie up so he could be gone for a few days. He tried to work hard, but his mind kept wandering and his heart wasn't in it. Being at this desk used to thrill him. Gave him a sense of purpose. Made him feel as if his life had some significance.

So, why did he suddenly feel as if he were trapped by four walls? As if he could never be happy unless he was zooming down a mountainside at full speed.

It was the skiing he missed, he insisted stubbornly. Vacations were bad things, see? It made a person not want to work as hard when the vacation was over.

It had nothing to do with Julie. So, she hadn't wanted him. She hadn't wanted his kiss. It was
probably just as well. Think of the heartache a romance caused. And marriage…

His stomach twisted and his mind spun him backward to the dark of night in his bedroom, and the harsh, angry voices of his parents. The crash of a glass against a wall. Mom's furious litany of words that made him crawl out from beneath his baseball-motif bedspread and huddle on the floor in the corner, next to the giant-size teddy bear. He curled up tight.

He could smell the grass and dirt on his baseball cleats from the game. Dad hadn't made it. He had a meeting, like always. Mom hadn't come, either, but his game wasn't what they were fighting about. They were fighting about him. Mom wanted him out from underfoot because he demanded too much attention.

Pain tore through him like a thunderclap, bringing him back to the present. Back to the peace of his office, where the hum of the computer and the whir of the heating system were the only sounds. He was breathing hard, and sweat beaded on his forehead.
Lord, please make these memories stop.
But they remained there, like a shadow behind his thoughts for most of the afternoon.

By the end of the day, he couldn't take it anymore. Maybe the surgery was bothering him more than he thought—more than he was letting himself feel. One thing was certain, the past seemed
too close, as if he could reach out and touch it. He worked late and grabbed takeout from his favorite deli on the way home.

His building was quiet, the security team reading the day's newspaper as he picked up his mail. Bills. Junk mail. A letter from Nanna.

Great. He'd been planning to call her tonight. He wanted to know how the wedding plans were progressing and if her beautiful gown had arrived today as promised. Mostly, he just wanted to hear her voice before tomorrow. She was a great comfort to him.

The Lord had blessed him greatly in giving him such a fine, loving grandmother.

Why hadn't he really considered that before? The Lord had given him a loving grandmother and a loyal sister, and what did he do? Noah didn't trust anyone—not even God—with his heart. Not his grandmother or his sister. And not Julie.

He kept everyone at a distance, and the minute they got too close, off he went. Jetting away to Japan or New York, and never returning phone calls or e-mails. And why was that? Because of that memory he had today, that's why. That little boy rejected by his parents over and over again had grown up into a man who allowed no one to reject him.

Maybe there wasn't a bad-luck marriage gene. Only a man too afraid to love anyone completely.

In protecting his heart, he'd really been turning
his back on some of the Lord's most important blessings. What kind of Christian did that make him? What kind of man?

Tomorrow he was facing surgery. When the doctors removed the tumor, they were going to test it for cancer. There would be no one in the waiting room, or in his hospital room or there to hold his hand while he waited for the lab results.

It wasn't what he wanted. He hated being alone. He hated that he was afraid to depend on anyone. Worst of all, he was running out of time to change things. If he didn't do it now, then he might never have another chance.

He unlocked his door and marched straight to the phone.

 

“Miss Renton, I can't get this on.” Emily trudged up to the edge of the desk and peered up at her, pleadingly. “Mommy said if I don't wear my mittens, I don't get Twinkies. They's my favorite.”

“Mine, too. Let me see what's wrong here.” Julie circled around her desk and knelt to inspect the problem. Emily's mom had sewn buttons to the sleeves in order to secure the mittens, and one mitten had come unbuttoned. “I can fix this. Stand still for me, okay?”

Disaster averted. With a smile, she sent Emily to the door to take her place in the lineup. When every kid was accounted for, coats buttoned and
little backpacks claimed, she led them in double rows down the hallway and out to the loading zone where a half-dozen bright yellow buses waited patiently in the blowing wind and cold. A long line of cars hugged the curb behind the buses, full of mothers waiting for their children.

“Thanks, Miss Renton!” Emily skipped in the direction of the cars. Her black curls bounced in time with her gait. Her mittened hand reached out for her mother, a plump smiling woman who knelt down to take a look at the beautiful cotton-ball snowman her daughter had made.

“Bye-bye, Miss Renton!” Marc offered shyly, his cotton-ball snowman a boyish wad that looked more like a football than anything else. He had a mother, too, who balanced a baby on her hip, and who listened to him patiently while he led the way to their minivan.

Such lucky families. A yearning so strong nearly knocked her to her knees. She'd prayed for days now, trying to stop this ache in her heart. Why had God brought her down this path, just to break her heart? Why had Noah come into her life at all?

His surgery was tomorrow. Had it been a coincidence that she'd met Noah the same night his health came to a crisis? No, Julie didn't believe in coincidences, but she did believe in the Lord. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called by Him.

By turning away from Noah, was she stepping off the path God had made for her? What if this was God's will for her?

I don't know what to do, Lord.
How had everything become so complicated? Was she turning her back on a friend? Or simply being realistic? How did she know?

When the last of her charges had safely boarded their buses, Julie turned heel and headed back inside. Susan caught up with her. Susan had blueberry muffins and was willing to share. She'd grab the bakery box and be right over.

Who could argue with blueberry muffins? Julie stopped by the teachers' lounge, grabbed two vanilla sodas from her stash in the back of the refrigerator, her contribution to the impromptu get-together.

Thankfully, the heat had kicked on and her room was toasty warm as she deposited the bottles on her worktable in back and grabbed an eraser from the chalk tray.

A ring came from inside her desk drawer. With chalk dust on her hands, she dug out her cell phone. “Hello?”

“Figured you'd be done teachin' your class by now.” It was Granddad. “Are you sittin' down?”

“Close enough.” Since she still had a hold of the eraser, she started cleaning the board. “What's up?”

“Got a call from Nora a few minutes ago. Seems
that grandson of hers needs her to come out there, and she's askin' me to go with her.”

“You should be at her side, Granddad.” Julie kept her voice as steady as possible.

“You don't seem too surprised, girl. You've been spending time with that billionaire. Do you know what's going on?”

“Yes, I do.” She hadn't realized she was holding her breath, but she felt tension melt away as she exhaled. She was glad Noah had told his family.

“Nora said to bring you along, if you can go. Her granddaughter is making the travel arrangements for us right now. Are you comin'? I suppose you were probably gonna be headin' out to be with him anyway?”

She heard the question in his voice. He was asking more than that—he wanted to know if she and Noah were romantically involved. “No, Granddad. Well, I wasn't sure.”

“Then should I have Hope make a reservation for you?”

Yes, her heart said. But she couldn't go. He hadn't asked her to go. She couldn't fly out uninvited just because she was worried for him—no, afraid for him.

“It sure would mean a lot to Nora if you came,” Granddad persisted. “Sounds like a pretty serious situation he's in. If somethin' were to go wrong, it wouldn't be right not to be there.”

Exactly.

“I'll take care of my own reservation.” There, it was decided. Julie promised she would ask the neighbor to look after Granddad's dog, and hung up.

She stared at her cell phone and the board she'd cleaned without noticing. Well, one dilemma solved. She was going to New York.

 

Noah heard them in the hall and yanked open the door. It was two in the morning, and he was in his robe and slippers, but he didn't care. Nanna led the way, with his sister on her heels. Harold was hauling luggage out of the elevator.

“Noah!” His grandmother pulled him into her arms, holding him tight. “You shouldn't be up. Hope has a set of keys. The last thing I wanted to do was wake you at this hour.”

“I haven't been able to sleep anyway, so I decided to wait for you.” He didn't tell her that he'd spent hours poring over his Bible, trying to stay hopeful. That he had a thousand worries and more regrets. “Come in. Let me help with your luggage.”

“Harold will handle it.” Nanna's touch was a comfort as she took his hand, leading him toward the living room. “This place hasn't changed much since I've been here. There's no wife. No children.”

“I found a matched set of a wife and kids at
Bloomingdale's in my price range, but they clashed with the furniture so I took them back. Got a nice floor lamp instead.”

“Very funny.” Hope hugged him, too, holding him extra tight. “How are you? What time do you have to be at the hospital? Nanna and I have come to take charge of you, since you can't seem to take care of yourself.”