I laughed. My brother would most certainly care. But then my face fell. Go try to find another woman to date when I knew that the one across the street was perfect for me? It was an impossible situation to be put in. Because I knew that Ella wouldn’t be ready for a year or more.
“No. I’ll sit this one out,” I told her.
She frowned. “But you just said?—”
“I’ve got my eye on someone, but they aren’t ready,” I told her, and dawning came over her face. Her gaze went to the pecan pie Ella had brought and the single slice that remained.
Sarah walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Be patient. Sometimes the greatest treasure is worth the longer wait.”
I nodded. She was right, and Ella seemed like the greatest treasure I’d found since Scarlett was alive.
Chapter Twenty
Ella
Three months passed. The snow melted, the firewood and Bible verses stopped, and I was now officiallyhugelypregnant. Work was going well. I liked being busy, and the second trimester of this pregnancy was a breeze compared to the first. Every Sunday, Maggie invited me to church, and every Sunday, I declined. I did, however, enjoy the widows’ club on Wednesdays, so I continued to go to that. I’d made good friends with Ruthie and had been to her bakery many times. I’d even helped her one day when she was short-staffed. It seemed like I was settling into life without James and managing the farm and paying the bills okay. Things were looking up.
“How’s my favorite pregnant person?” Maggie’s voice called from the doorway of my office inside Seth’s barn.
I smiled, stapling a receipt to an order of cattle feedbefore spinning around in my chair. “Maggie, I’m theonlypregnant person you know,” I told her as I took her offered plate of food. She fed me lunch every day, no matter how often I told her she didn’t need to. She said it was no trouble as she was already cooking for her, Seth, and half the farmhands.
Maggie gave me a cheeky smile. “You’re still my favorite.”
She pulled up a chair as I tucked into the delicious chili, cornbread, and slice of chocolate cake. She was feeding me more now that I was further along in my pregnancy, and I wasn’t complaining. Cake and pie every day was my version of heaven.
“So I’ve been thinking,” Maggie said, folding her hands across her lap. “I know you don’t want to go to church, but I feel like I have a close enough relationship with you now that I can call you out on that.”
I bristled. “Call me outhow?”
This lunch conversation had quickly gone south.
Maggie gave me a compassionate look. “Honey, our relationship with the Lord is like a plant. If we don’t water it, it dies. Do you want yours to die?”
Fear surged inside me at her words, but there was also confusion and hurt there, too. “Maggie…” I set my plate down and folded my hands in my lap. “It’s complicated… I have been a believer most of my life, and I’ve always felt that the Lord would protect me and guide me. I prayed for James’s protection every night, and the Bible says what we pray for in faith is given to us. Well, mine wasn’t. I prayed my husband would be protected, and he was killed.” My voice was shaking by the time I was done speaking.
Maggie nodded, reaching out to grasp my hands. “Darling, just because you’re a Christian doesn’t mean your life will be easy. If anything, it puts a target on your back for the enemy.”
I chewed on my lip, and she continued. “Your husband had his own relationship with the Lord, and I don’t know God’s plan for his life or why he was taken from this earth. Maybe it was the devil that caused that shooting. Maybe God allowed it for some bigger purpose. We will go crazy trying to figure out the whys of such delicate things. But you need to focus on your own walk with the Lord now and raising this baby. Life is so much easier with God’s guidance. I can’t imagine how lonely you must feel having closed that door to Him.”
Fresh grief welled up inside me at her words, and I burst into sobs. Her arms came around me tightly, and she just held me as my heart broke all over again. I realized then that the day James died was also the day the Lord died in my heart. I’d killed him off and closed the door, and without water, my plant was surely dead.
After gathering myself, I pulled away from her and wiped my eyes. “You’re right, but I just… I need answers. I need to know why God would allow this?—”
My cell phone rang, and I frowned, sniffling. “One second,” I told her and pulled it to my ear. “Hello?”
“This is a collect call from Idaho County Jail. To accept this call, press one. To reject, hang up.”
I hung up. “Weird spam call,” I said, focusing back on Maggie. “I’m not sure I’m ready yet to water my plant,Maggie. I don’t even know where to start,” I told her honestly.
She nodded, cupping her hand over mine. “You start with reading your Bible. That’s our food. That’s how God speaks to us even when we think we can’t hear Him anymore.”
I smiled. “Well then, your grandson has been watering my plant by leaving me Bible verses on my chopped wood as you threatened to feed him boiled eggs for dinner.”
Her brow furrowed. “What? I never threatened him with anything. He’s been doing that out of his own heart.”
“Oh.” I leaned back, swallowing hard. Seth had made that up?
Maggie seemed to catch on that she’d thrown Seth under the bus. “You know I might have encouraged him to, but?—”
