Then, Jace jumped down and lifted Eddie to the ground.
A man appeared in the doorway. “What you folks want?” Not exactly a welcoming question.
“Mind if we use the outhouse?” Jace asked, his voice all friendly.
“Help yourselves and move on.”
Spider legs crawled up and down Dianne’s spine and alongher arms at his tone. She reached for Jace’s hand to assist her to the ground and shamelessly held to it until they passed the man and his little house. She stood by the outhouse and waited for Eddie, then turned him over to Jace as she went inside. As soon as she finished, she hurried to the wagon where Eddie was already in the back, and Jace waited to help her to the seat.
They were barely out of earshot before she spoke. “I’m surprised the stage line hires a man like him. So unfriendly.”
“His job doesn’t entail taking care of the passengers, only the horses, and they appear well cared for.”
She brought her attention back to her predicament. “Now what?”
“I guess we go on to the next station.”
She couldn’t mistake his weariness. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“That you have to take me further. I know you don’t want to.”
He opened his mouth, but she didn’t give him a chance to say he didn’t mind if that’s what he meant to say because it was obvious he did.
“I think something happened at the ranch that makes you not want to go back there, but Jace—” She wasn’t above begging. “Can’t you let it go? I need a home. You need to run the ranch.”
His jaw flexed. He stared straight ahead. “My answer is still no.”
“Then I’ll go to a higher power. Someone who can persuade you to change your mind.”
“Huh?” He gaped at her.
“Yes, God above.” She pointed heavenward.
“You think He’s going to do as you ask?”
“He’ll do what is best.”
“For who? You or me?”
She looked back for Eddie. He didn’t need to hear this sort of discussion. He played in the back corner with pieces of wood he’dfound in the wagon. She shifted her attention to Jace. “For all of us.”
His eyes narrowed. “Did He do what was best for you when your husband died?”
Before she could reply, he continued.
“Did you ask God to heal your father? I think you did, and yet he died. Just as I prayed for my parents and sisters to get better, and yet they’re dead.”
His taut voice and shoulders revealed how painful those losses had been for him even as hers were for her. Yet, he hadn’t mentioned Chet. Strange.
“I think we have to decide to trust God even when things don’t go our way, or we’re not trusting Him at all.”
“Why? Why must we trust Him?” Such longing in his voice.
Was he revealing his doubts? Or did he want her to explain in such a way that disappointments and losses made sense? Unsure if she could do so, she considered her answer. “It’s something I’ve struggled with, of course. I was fifteen when my mother died. She grew weak over a matter of days. I think she knew she wasn’t going to recover and called me to her side often. Although it took much of her strength, she had things she wanted to say to me.” Dianne’s throat thickened. “One matter she talked about was trusting God. She mentioned Job many times. In that book of the Bible, chapter thirteen, verse fifteen reads, ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him.’” She paused, overcome with bittersweet memories and a yearning for the kind of faith Job had. “She said if we only trust Him for good things, it’s like being fond of our parents only when they give us candy.” A hitch in her throat stopped her momentarily. “I want the kind of trust she meant. To throw myself on His goodness even when things go wrong.”
“Does that include not having the home you came here expecting?”
