Stranger's Gift (45 page)

“How do you know?” She fought against the flutter of fresh hope that stirred within and bent to pick up a small, perfectly striped banded tulip shell.

“Because when I look to the future, I can't imagine meeting the challenges ahead without you there with me. Because, other than my mother, you are the only woman I've known who is strong enough to admit that she had dreams of her own.”

“I'm not your mother.”

“I'm not looking for a mother. I had the best. I'm looking for a wife, Hester, a partner I can share life with.”

“Sounds like starting up a business,” she grumbled, but inside she was holding his words close to her heart.

“It's a marriage, Hester, a sacred union.”

They waded through the water side by side for another ten yards until they reached the clam beds. “Careful here. The edges of the shells are sharp.”

He stayed where he was as she picked her way to an open spot and bent to pick up a large shell. “Hi there,” she said softly as she turned the blackened shell over and was surprised when the coiled resident of the shell did not snake back inside and close its aperture to keep danger out. Instead, the creature stretched its sunrise-orange body outward, as if welcoming her. “Look,” she murmured, holding the shell up so that John could share in this rare display of God's wondrous creation.

“It's beautiful,” he said, and then as she bent to replace the shell on its feeding ground, he added, “But not half as beautiful as you are, Hester.”

It was not the way of her people or his to offer such compliments. They came from plain stock, simple people who found beauty in serving God. And yet she could not help but rejoice that this man whom she had come to love found her pretty.

“We should get back,” she said softly as she picked her way around the sharp edges of the clams until she was standing with him on a sandbar. “By now no doubt Olive has spread the word of the debacle she witnessed.”

She turned to go, but he stopped her by taking her hand and weaving his fingers between hers. Then he lifted both their hands to his lips and kissed hers. “Hester, I believe that everything that has happened for me these last two years has been leading me to this moment, to you. I believe that God has brought us to each other. I know that separately we can each do good, but together just think what we might accomplish.” He touched her cheek. “I love you.”

She looked up at him and saw in his gaze what she knew she could not hide in her own. She loved him, and in that moment she saw as clearly as if she were gazing into a mirror that he did indeed return that love. “Marry me,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she answered.

And when he kissed her, she knew that he had been right, that this was right and that God had indeed led two strangers to find each other so that they might travel the rest of the way together.

A
NNA
S
CHMIDT
is the author of more than twenty works of fiction. Among her many honors, Anna is the recipient of the
Romantic Times'
Reviewer's Choice Award and a finalist for the RITA award for romantic fiction. She enjoys gardening and collecting seashells at her winter home in Florida. To contact Anna, visit her website at
www.booksbyanna.com
.

Return to Pinecraft in May 2012

for the story of sisters Emma and Jeannie in

A Sister's Forgiveness

a story of family, forgiveness, and redemption.