A Texas Ranger's Family (16 page)

And “for keeps” is the only way Daniel should be willing to accept her.

Slowly, Erin shook her head. “I just can't deny God's hand in this opportunity. I think it's obvious what I'm supposed to do.”

 

His skin burned where their bodies touched. He pushed away from the table and stood, knowing the same anger Dana had felt moments before. He paced a few steps away putting space and reason between himself and the woman he was suddenly desperate to keep in his life.

“I completely disagree with you. God brought you
home from a war on another continent, barely alive, afraid of the very word
family
. But look at us today. We have the choice to start over again. That is the obvious evidence of God's hand showing us what we're supposed to do.”

She shook her head. “You don't know that for sure.”

“Yes, I do,” he insisted. “And I'm asking you to give it a couple more days if only out of respect for me. If you still feel you have to leave, I won't try to change your mind.”

“J.D. wants to send a car for me tomorrow because—” she began to protest.

Daniel blocked the rest of her sentence with one palm outward before his face. He swallowed down the emotion rising in his throat, when what he wanted was to scream like a barn owl and smash his fist into the cabin wall. But losing control was not his style. It would give Erin the excuse she needed, and it would seal a fate that was never meant to be.

He exhaled to relieve the pressure of frustration in his lungs.

“With all due respect to your employer, I don't give one hoot in Jalisco about what J.D. wants. You and I and Dana are all that matter right here and right now. You said you could never repay us for being by your side all those days when nobody thought you'd make it. Well, now you can. Give me one more day of your life, Erin. Promise you won't make any decision for twenty-four hours.”

He went for the takedown. “Promise you won't run out on us again.”

E
rin awoke at daybreak to a quiet ranch house, just as Daniel had predicted. But the silence had nothing to do with being punked by the girls. Erin's announcement the night before hadn't merely set a pall over the house, it had turned a celebration into a wake.

With Dana's upset so obvious, Daniel felt it was best to tell everyone the truth. “Erin has been offered an assignment and if she accepts, she'll be leaving in a day or two.”

The noisy house emptied soon after.

In a loaner pair of red fuzzy slippers, Erin padded into the spacious common room. The aroma of freshly ground coffee and slats of sunlight across the pine floor welcomed her approach.

“I didn't expect you to be up for a while.” LaVerne leaned on her elbows at the kitchen counter looking every day of her seventy-some-odd years.

“My arm ached all night. I thought a mug of strong java and one of your oatmeal raisin cookies would make a good chaser for my Motrin.”

“Are you sure it's your arm and not your heart that's botherin' you?” LaVerne leveled an assessing look at Erin.

“Point well-taken.” She busied herself with the old percolator, careful not to dribble on the tile countertop.

“Daniel left a note for you.” LaVerne pointed to a white envelope on the table. “Said he hopes to be back this evening, but it may be tomorrow.”

Erin felt a fresh stab of pain at the mention of Daniel. Maybe it hadn't been her injury keeping her awake after all. At least not the injury to her arm. She reached for the note, tucked it into the pocket of her robe and turned toward the back door carrying Daniel's favorite Hopalong Cassidy mug.

“Erin, when you come back inside, would you mind giving me a hand with something in my room?”

“Of course, I'll be glad to help.”

Erin closed the screen softly. It could bounce off the hinges and never bother her daughter as she slept upstairs with the covers over her head, nothing but points of purple sticking out to give Dana's identity away. Funny, such a thought wasn't even a wrinkle in Erin's mind a month ago.

Not ha-ha funny. Sad funny.

The old glider, built to be quiet for two and complain about one, creaked beneath her weight. She sipped carefully, thinking of Daniel's way of blowing the coffee's surface each time it came to his lips.

His lips. The only ones she'd ever known.

She fished the envelope from her pocket and lifted the flap.

Of course, she'd pray. The criminals who trafficked illegals from Mexico into the U.S. were tantamount to animals. They were without conscience or morals, sacrificing human life as if it had no value beyond the money they extorted like bus fare.

She read the note a second time. He'd chosen his words carefully, probably imagining her reaction. She had every reason to be aggravated and insulted. He'd put the importance of his work over family only hours after he'd insisted she put her deadline on hold for the sake of the three of them.

Was this the way it would truly be in their home? Do as I say but not as I do? Was he talking a good game and then bending the rules for his team?

Her fingers brushed away a strand of hair along with the thought. Daniel was the most honorable man she'd ever known. At a time in her life when she'd been most vulnerable and alone, he'd been her rock. Twice.

She owed him the benefit of any doubt. But mostly she owed it to Daniel not to doubt him at all.

The chirp of her cell phone was muffled in the folds of the nubby chenille robe. That would be J.D. expecting her answer.

“Good morning, boss.”

“Hey, kid! I can have a car there in three hours and
with only one connection, you can be in New York by nine o'clock.” He paused to snicker to himself. “Aleutian standard time.”

“I need another day or two, J.D.”

“You don't say.” The words echoed only mild surprise. “Things going that good or that bad?”

“I'm not even sure how to answer.”

“Then it's best not to answer, yet. I have confidence you'll do what's right for you.”

“That's just the problem. It's not about me anymore. There's Dana to think of now.”

“What about Daniel?”

“For Dana's sake, he'd like me to stay. But I'm not sure that's the right reason to change the course of everyone's lives. Dana will leave home in a couple more years and then what?”

“Then you have a husband to share your life with. I know you feel like you've lived a lifetime already, but you're still a young woman, Erin. If you decide to live stateside, World View will adjust.”

“You're not helping, J.D.”

“Did you think I was going to argue with you?” He chuckled, as if the idea were out of the question.

“No, but I was hoping you'd at least give it a try.”

“Kid, whether you choose the battlefield or a wheat field for your mission field, our Creator's miraculous hand will still show up in your work.”

Erin rested her head against the cool metal of the glider as her eyes followed the lively flight of a Monarch butterfly. Then her gaze lifted to the jagged mountain peaks in the far-off distance. Whether from a few feet or miles away, the evidence of God's handiwork was in
delibly stamped on this world. He didn't need Erin Gray's help to prove a thing and it shouldn't take a miracle to prove He'd always been in control.

“J.D., what made you say
miraculous?
”

“You haven't read any of those letters, have you?”

She shook her head. The silence was her answer.

“That's what I figured when I didn't hear from you.” There was wistful sadness in his words.

“They're still in that box in Houston,” she admitted.

This time it was J.D. who was quiet. Erin imagined him shaking his head at her stubborn refusal to read what he referred to as her
fan mail
, a term she'd always assumed was tongue-in-cheek.

“Before you make a final decision, I wish you'd have a look at a few. Whichever fork in the road you decide to take, I know what those people had to say will give you a measure of peace.”

“Thanks, boss. Can you buy me a few more days?”

J.D. paused for a moment. “Not this time, kid. I have to put somebody on a flight to Baghdad in eight days. It's travel tomorrow or not at all.”

“I understand.”

“And Erin—”

“Yes, sir.”

“I'll still love you no matter what you decide. Even more importantly, I believe Daniel will, too.”

She slid the phone out of sight and crossed her left arm over her eyes to soak up the tears that leaked unchecked.

 

Erin rinsed her cup and put it in the dish drainer.

“LaVerne? Do you need my help right away or can I get changed first?”

“Come on in here,” she called from her bedroom at the end of the hallway. “I don't plan to get out of my housecoat till it's time to go to Becky's and you shouldn't fret about it, either.”

The door to the master suite was propped open with a red brick.

“Don't stump your toe on that thing,” LaVerne cautioned. She sat in a leather recliner next to the bay window overlooking her back garden. “It's been there since the boys' daddy brought it in here thirty-five years ago for a temporary door stop.”

Erin's mama had used a mason jar filled with pennies for the same purpose. That clear quart jar glinting with shades of copper flitted through the eye of Erin's mind. She felt the corner of her lips and her spirits lift at the brief image. How many other pleasurable memories had she buried so deeply that they could only surface through sensory association?

“What's all this?” Erin asked. A thick mosaic of white littered the quilt over the four-poster bed as well as the sofa and table positioned near LaVerne's comfortable lounger.

The older woman dipped her double chin and did her best to look contrite. LaVerne seemed to do very little that wasn't by design, so Erin figured the contrition was for show.

“I didn't get a chance to go through these back at Daniel's house and you didn't seem to want 'em, so I figured there was no harm in bringing 'em along. Each mornin' after my time with the Lord, I've been reading a stack. I've gotta tell you, Erin, these are hands down better than any devotional I've ever found. I apologize,
I'm not familiar with the pictures that go along with the stories, but I'm sure you will be and I'd like you to show me a few before you leave. I wanna see for myself the buried treasures these people all talk about.”

Erin's laptop was right down the hall loaded with thousands of files. Which ones could possibly cause people to imagine hidden meaning?

“Here.” LaVerne thrust a handwritten page at Erin. “Read this one first. It's my favorite, so far. I can't wait to see the angel.”

Erin sunk down on a cozy window-seat cushion and began to read.

Erin's hand trembled as she folded the page. She remembered the old house in the Romanian countryside and the many pictures taken during the storm. She recalled one being selected for publication but she never noticed anything remarkable beyond the fury of the clouds.

“I'll be right back.” She handed the letter to LaVerne and hurried the few steps to Daniel's desk and her laptop.

“Please let those files be here,” she murmured aloud, not at all sure what had survived the transfer from her damaged hard drive. She switched on the desk lamp and tilted the shade toward the small computer as she tabbed through the folder labeled
Romania
. Her hand hovered
over the mouse as the photo leapt to life. She tapped the zoom key until the window filled the screen.

“Oh, my goodness,” Erin breathed, her hand reached forward as if to touch the smooth surface and find it three dimensional. “There it is. How could I never have seen it?”

“It's God's hand,” LaVerne breathed over Erin's shoulder. She stood close, leaning down to see for herself. “You were there at
that
moment, to catch
that
bolt of lightning in
that
windowpane and it was the answer to
that
woman's prayer. It's a miracle.” She shook her head, never taking her shimmering gaze from the monitor. “And the best part is, there are so many more.”

“What did you say?” Erin's face snapped toward LaVerne for confirmation.

She pointed to her room across the hall.

“There are hundreds of letters in there and each one is different. People see things in your pictures that give them spiritual comfort. Some of the most incredible stories are from soldiers who were stationed near you, who witnessed the same things and places in person without recalling anything unusual. But in your pictures they see the shadow of God's hand, undeniably hovering, keeping 'em safe.