"Is there something I can do to help with supper? The boys informed me that we were eating when I got home, so I assume that there's something almost ready."
"You could just sit down and take it easy. I'll have it on the table here in about five minutes."
"Or... it sounds like you've been as busy as I have today, and I would like to help you if there's something I can do."
As tempting as it might be to sit down and kick back, he didn't want her doing all the work. Especially since it was obvious that she had worked all day as well.
"All right. I just needed to chop these vegetables for a salad, and cut the bread."
He grabbed the knife and began to cut the tomatoes she had pointed out.
"How was your day?" he asked, feeling very domestic. Was this what it would be like to come home to a wife? To Olivia?
He didn't even stop himself from thinking that, because he kind of felt like maybe God had orchestrated this, and he was resisting unnecessarily. Although, he certainly couldn't force Olivia to do anything she didn't want to, nor did he want to do that. He wanted Olivia to want him for him.
"Well, you said I should make myself at home, so I went ahead and got all the perishable items that were left in the church kitchenand brought them over here. That's how I was able to make the vegetable soup. And I made a little dessert as well with the leftover dairy stuff."
"Wow. Dessert? That sounds awesome."
"Someone has a sweet tooth?" she asked, giving him a calculating look.
"Guilty," he said, raising his hand.
They laughed together. "Anyway, I cleaned the kitchen over there and organized it. Nothing that's going to make any of the ladies upset, I don't think anyway. But I just made sure everything was neatly put away and ready for the next time."
"I don't know if I want there to be a next time. People are still digging out from this one."
"How was your day?" she asked. "Are there lots of people still snowed in?"
"There are a few. Especially people with longer driveways. It's a lot to shovel. I did a little shoveling myself, met a few new people, one couple that I'm pretty sure we're going to see in church. If not this Sunday, sometime around Christmas."
"That's great! Who would've thought that God could use... I guess it shouldn't surprise us that God could use a snowstorm to bring people to him."
"No. But somehow the way he works always does have a tendency to... if not surprise me, amaze me."
"Same. I love that He uses things that no one else thinks He could."
"His creativity is awesome."
He put the tomatoes on the lettuce she had sitting out, and then began to chop the carrots.
"Aiden, please set the silverware on the table at each place. Ethan, fold a napkin and set it beside each plate."
Mark waited until the boys did her bidding.
"You do an excellent job with them."
"They love you. They couldn't wait for you to come home."
"I would be flattered, except I'm pretty sure they couldn't wait for me to get home because they were going to eat when I got here. They're typical boys, and had their stomachs totally in mind."
She laughed, as he had intended, and her laugh made him warm all the way to the soles of his feet and back.
"Well, that part is true. I did tell them that we weren't eating until you got home. But they talked about you all day. And they truly do adore you."
He loved that—that her children loved him just as much as he loved them.
"They're great kids. I don't want to play favorites, because as a pastor I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be impartial, but they were definitely my favorite children of all the kids that were there these last few days. They just have such sweet personalities about them. And maybe it's because there's two of them, and they play off of each other, but they just have a heart for people, even at this young age."
