A Mother's Gift (Love Inspired) (8 page)

Wordlessly, Vonnie hugged Dixie close. Mother and daughter clung to each other for a long time. Finally, they broke apart, both dabbing at their eyes. Vonnie picked up with her chatter again in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood.

“Bess called. I told her there wasn’t a thing she could do here, so she’s delayed her return for another day.”

“Problems?” Dixie asked, sniffing back the last of her tears.

“One of the older grandchildren was running a slight temperature last night. Doesn’t seem to be anything serious.”

Vonnie went on, talking about this and that. Not one word was said about Joel.

It didn’t feel right, like all those times after Mark’s death when everyone around Dixie had chatted so brightly on so many subjects except the one consuming all the air in the room. She had reacted with anger and tears back then, accusing them of wanting to forget Mark and then sobbing when they did talk about him. Her grief had been fresh and sharp at the time, but lately it had begun to feel old and tired.

Dixie shook her head. All her angst about letting go of Mark seemed rather foolish suddenly. No one really had a choice about that. Death severed all physical ties. Distance and time gradually pulled the emotional link to a fine thread. It started out filling one’s heart to the point of bursting, painfully large and seemingly all-powerful. But life went on, and time passed, distance grew, pain faded, grief became bearable.

She’d fought so hard to hold on to all of that, thinking that she was holding on to Mark, but Mark lived in heaven. He was happy there. She believed it with all her heart and soul. How could she begrudge him that? Even had she the ability to do so, how could she ask him to give up that for a life here with her and Clark? Even a good life and all its attendant joys could not compare with the ecstasy of heaven.

Oh, how she had railed at the unfairness of his death. She had seen loving another man as a repudiation of her marriage to Mark, but she had been wrong about that. She and Mark had belonged together for the duration of his life, but evidently not for the duration of hers. What she couldn’t seem to grasp, what she couldn’t quite reconcile in her own mind, was the idea that God might actually have given her a new love in a dream.

“Dixie?”

Vonnie’s voice penetrated her thoughts, bringing her back to the moment. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

Vonnie brushed Dixie’s hair back from her face. “Are you okay?”

Dixie smiled and nodded. Decision settled over her. Without any inner debate or weighing of options, she knew what to do. She knew, too, that she would be opening a door on a whole new stage of her life, a new world, even. Gulping, she took a deep breath.

“Mom, I need to tell you a story. It started right after we put up the swing set in the backyard. With a dream.”

They parted in tears. Dixie didn’t know why, really, and neither, apparently, did Vonnie. It wasn’t sadness or fear that brought the tears this time. It wasn’t grief or anger or even relief. Dixie decided, later, sitting before the open Bible at the scarred table in her kitchen, that it was wonder, amazement.

“Do I believe God speaks to us on occasion in dreams?” Vonnie had said after hearing the whole tale. “How can I not now?”

“It doesn’t mean I’m supposed to be with Joel,” Dixie had cautioned.

But obviously he was meant to be some part of her life, their lives. She was glad of that. Joel Slade was a wonderful man, everything a woman could ask for, in fact, in whatever capacity she was blessed enough to have him—Christian brother, friend…husband, father to her children.

Oh, who was she kidding? She was nuts about the guy, and God knew she had tried not to be. But how could she not fall for him? With Joel, the world suddenly seemed like a bright place of infinite possibilities, not the sad, dark cave she’d been living in, where only the past and grief mattered. With Joel, she could be happy again. They could be happy again, all of them—she, Clark, Joel, Vonnie, Sam, even Bess.

Dixie beat back the giddy feeling that thinking of such a possibility suddenly evoked in her. She wasn’t seventeen again, imagining her Prince Charming. She laughed at that. Who would imagine a blind Prince Charming? Suddenly, she couldn’t imagine any other kind. Nevertheless, she told herself sternly, these things took time and a measured, adult response. They had no reason to rush, after all. They could see what developed, let things take a natural course. She imagined attending church and sitting casually next to Joel and his mother again. After a few weeks, surely one of them would suggest dinner afterward. There would be meetings in the park and long chats in the sunshine. Eventually she’d make a point of inviting Joel over to the house again.

She tried to think what dating would be like. It wasn’t as if he would invite her out to a movie. A concert, maybe? Lectures at the university? He’d think of something and, knowing Joel, it would be something she’d never expect.

Okay, Lord,
she thought, smiling.
I’m opening that door and trusting You to bring through it whatever You will.

A dull
thunk
put that thought on hold. Instead, she left her chair and moved down the hall that flanked the living areas. She passed the large central bath and two bedrooms, including her own, approaching the door at the end of the hallway. Carefully, she eased the door open, expecting to catch Clark up and playing in his room. He’d protested when she’d tucked him in earlier, insisting that he wasn’t tired, but she had seen the exhaustion in his eyes and knew that the sooner their routine was firmly reestablished after yesterday’s misadventures, the better. And she was right. Clark slept the deep, deep slumber of the innocent. If he had so much as moved since she’d tucked him in, she couldn’t tell it by the soft glow of the night-light next to his bed.

Pulling the door closed, she wandered back into the kitchen and dipped down toward the chair, but before her behind even met the seat, a series of rapid
thunks
had her bolting upright once again. Heart pounding, she strained her ears. The next
thunk-thunk-thunk
sent her toward the back door.

Reaching toward the phone on the wall, just in case, she flipped on the outside light. Dressed in jeans, boots, tan leather gloves and a T-shirt under a lightweight denim jacket, Joel dropped an armful of logs next to the garage. Going down on his haunches, he began straightening and stacking the firewood. Weak with relief, Dixie shook her head. She really had to get the man one of those talking watches. She flipped the dead bolt and opened the door, stepping out onto the narrow patio, her house shoes scuffing on the concrete.

“Hey, hon,” he called. Pushing up to his full height and tugging off his work gloves, he turned to face her.

“Do you realize what time it is?” she asked, belting her robe closed over her soft, knit pajamas as she moved toward him.

“Yep. Do you realize that it’s all pretty much the same to me?”

She laughed about that, actually laughed. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Well, now, I’ve been thinking about that,” he said, “and in all fairness there are some things you need to consider.”

“Such as?”

He whacked the gloves against his thigh. “For one thing, marrying me would eventually mean moving away from here, at least for a time.”

“Marrying you,” Dixie parroted. So much for taking their time!

“The law school is in Norman, Dixie. No getting around that,” he went on smoothly, “so we’d have to move, at least for a few years.”

She lifted a hand to cover her mouth, torn between laughter and a snort of disbelief. If she did either, though, he might think the worst, that she was rejecting him. And she didn’t want him to think that. Gulping, she quite brilliantly managed to say, “I—I see.”

“It’s not really that far when you think about it, though,” Joel stated, “and Sam’s retired now. He and Vonnie can come and go as they please. They’ll come see us. We’ll come see them. They’ve been looking forward to traveling, too, you know.”

“No, I—I didn’t know.”

“Oh. Well, I guess they didn’t want you to think…”

“That they were hanging around here for me and Clark,” Dixie finished for him. And she’d thought Joel was the blind one!

“Did I ever tell you,” he said quickly, “that Sam sent me messages after I was wounded?”

“No.”

Joel nodded. “Recorded messages. There’s a Web site. Anyway, he found it, and he got on there and just talked to me. It meant the world to me. I promise, we’ll stay in close contact with our folks. I will, I mean. Unless you…” He cleared his throat. “There’s something else you better consider, too,” he said very seriously. “It could be quite a few years before we, I, make any real money. My military pension will see us—that is, me—through school and help us…” he sighed “…get established, but it can take years to build a private practice.”

“A private practice,” she echoed, just so he’d know she was listening, even though her head was spinning like a top.

He grimaced. “Yeah, I’m determined to keep an open mind about that, but at this point I just don’t see me as corporate counsel or working myself to the bone for some big firm. You need to know that up front.”

“Ah. I, uh…I guess that’s something we ought to be praying about then,” she muttered.

He grinned wide enough to light up the night.

“What?” she asked, completely confused.

“You said ‘we.’ You said
we
ought to be praying about me going into private practice, and you’re absolutely right about that.”

Well, he started it, she thought crossly. The next moment, she bit back a spate of laughter. Of course, they were talking in terms of
we.
It had always been about
we,
even before they’d met! Good grief, how thick and stubborn could one woman be? She swallowed and searched for something calm and innocuous and reasonable to say. “It’s, um, good to be right sometimes.”

“It is. It really is,” he agreed solemnly, stuffing the gloves into his hip pocket. “I, uh…” He inhaled deeply. “I’ve done a lot of research, and you should know that you’ll lose some of the income you have now.”

As if that mattered. Mark had purchased a modest life insurance policy when they’d learned that she was pregnant with Clark. Dixie had used it to retire the loan on her car and tucked the rest into a savings account. The mortgage insurance that they’d carried on their house had paid off their home. That had allowed her and Clark to manage on Mark’s Social Security survivors’ benefits, but the money really meant nothing to her. She was thankful that she could be home with her young son now, but she’d always assumed that at some point she’d go to work.

“Clark won’t lose his,” Joel was explaining, “but that should be put back for college or something. It’s part of his father’s legacy, after all. Of course, we’ll want to find a way to try to match that for the other kids.”

“The other kids,” Dixie echoed, her heart suddenly pounding.

Joel folded his arms, his handsome face set in stern lines. Dixie smiled, imagining how many subordinates had gazed on that same expression.

“I really thought about this one,” he said, “and there’s just not much room for compromise here.”

“Oh?” Unexpected excitement nearly choked her; her heart felt as if it might fly right out of her chest.

“Clark needs brothers and sisters,” Joel argued, “and I want them.”

She didn’t even try to stop the tears that spilled from her eyes or quell the joy that filled her as she whispered, “I’ve thought about that myself lately.”

He stilled. “Have you?”

She tossed her head in an attempt to dislodge the tendrils of hair that clung to her wet cheeks, and gulped down the tears clogging her throat. “Just how many do you want?”

“As many as we can reasonably manage. And you’re crying again.”

She laughed, wiping her cheeks on the sleeve of her robe. “You already know that I love you, don’t you?”

He dropped his arms and bent forward, bracing his hands on his knees like a runner gasping to catch his breath, and bobbed his head. “Just like. You know. I love you.”

Laughter and sobs poured out of her in equal measure. “I’m not sure I deserve this!”

He straightened abruptly. “Oh, yeah, you do. Me, too. But I don’t think that’s really the point.”

“What is?” she croaked, mopping her face again.

“The plan. God’s got a plan for us, Dixie. God’s always got a plan.”

She didn’t doubt it. Now. She sauntered closer. “When did you get so smart?”

“Hmm, well, it started about the time I found myself living in a world of darkness. I had a dream, too, Dixie. All I could see was white light, nothing else, but I could hear my mom and both of my sisters talking. Nothing important. Just visiting. People were singing in the background, and there was organ music, like at church. And kids. I could hear them running and playing and laughing. Then there was this voice, not a spoken voice, you understand, just…I don’t know how else to explain it, but it said, ‘I am the Light of the world.’ And it’s true. Without that Light, His light, nothing else matters. I started smartening up right about the time I figured that out.”

“You had a dream,” she whispered, awestruck.

Smiling, he crooked his finger, drawing her close enough to slip his arms about her. “I still do.”

“Me, too,” she confessed joyfully.

He pulled her against him. “I’ll try to wait until you’re comfortable with this, but I feel like I’ve lost so much time with you and Clark already.”

She laughed, her delight spinning up, surely, all the way to heaven. She saw Mark’s face, smiling, happy for her.

“What are you thinking?” her future husband asked softly.

She pulled his head down to hers, whispering, “I’m thinking, yes, I’ll marry you.”

The time for talk had passed. They’d both heard everything they needed. It was time for joining, and that was exactly what happened with the kiss they shared then. They became a couple in that moment, as bound in their hearts as they would soon be in the eyes of the world. In a most amazing fashion, God had given them each other. He had given them a future, and a dream that neither could make come true without the other. Which was just as it was meant to be, as it was
always
meant to be.