She picked up a small shell at the edge of the step and turned it over in her fingers. The wind pulled at the hem of her shirt. Out beyond the surf, the purple horizon was getting wider and darker and even more ominous.
“Here’s where I am,” she finally said. “I can do a Creator. I can. The chemistry of life is impossibly elegant. I look at a cell under a microscope, and I have to be honest—I don’t think that happened by accident. Something is behind it. Some intelligence, some pattern, something I can’t explain with chance. I’ll go that far.”
“Kate.” Eli’s voice had gone very gentle. “Oh, oh. That’s so…” He was overwhelmed enough that all he could do was close his eyes.
But could she tell him the rest? Could she tell him the truth? Could she tell him that a man walking around in dusty sandals two thousand years ago, in a small province of the Roman Empire, who got himself killed for political reasons, wasnot, in her reasoned and scientific and logical opinion, the maker of the universe?
Taking a breath, she put her hand on his dirty, stubbly cheek, and looked into his eyes. The words were there, she knew every one, because she’d practiced them over and over.
Eli,she’d say,I can’t do it. I’ve tried and I can’t get there.
And then she’d watch the hope in his face come apart slowly. He’d close his eyes for a long moment—enough time that she suspected he was silently saying a prayer. And then he’d go inside, broken and sad.
How could she do that to this man she loved? This man who’d given his all today—and every day—who was nothing but good and smart and kind and everything she wanted in the whole world?
How could she break the heart of this man?
“Yes?” he prodded when too much time passed and she didn’t speak. There was enough of a cloud in his eyes to know he was worried she was, indeed, going to say the words she was thinking.
But could she lie? Never.
“I think that’s incredible progress, don’t you?” she said instead.
He didn’t move, but searched her face. “You’re sure? You can get to a Creator. Because if you can do that?—”
A stiff breeze hit them, hard enough to whip her hair back and make her lean in to avoid getting pushed away from him.
“We better go in,” she whispered. “We’re going to get sand in our eyes.”
“But, Kate.” He beamed at her, all the light back in his eyes, the joy and hope and depth that made her heart soar. “This is huge,” he said, wrapping both arms around her and giving a squeeze. “This is so…”
She closed her eyes and breathed him in, a mix of sweat and sand and coppery air heavy with impending disaster.
Leaning back, he looked down at her. “Thank you for having an open heart, Kate. I love you so much for that. For everything.”
As he kissed her, she just sank into the beauty of it. The love on his lips, the strength in his arms, the hope in his heart.
If she told him her true feelings, they’d be over. If she lied, she couldn’t live with herself.
For now, she’d take this kiss and pay the price later.
“Wait.What?” Tessa put down her third cup of cold coffee, another one wasted as the gray, wind-whipped, rain-soaked Friday morning slipped into early afternoon. With each passing second that Morgan didn’t show up with Olive, Tessa grew more miserable. “She’s not answering?”
Dusty shook his head, his face pale, his eyes clouded with concern. “I just keep getting voicemail.”
“Lynda?”
“She called the counselor on duty, a woman named Renee, who has worked with Morgan from day one. Renee said she talked to Morgan last night, she was ‘tired but doing okay’ and planned to be checked in by noon, no later.”
Tessa gnawed her lip. Morgan had agreed to spend the storm in the safety of the patient rehab center, well inland and protected. Normally, child services would take Olive and get her…who knows where.
Thank goodness, Dusty had looped Lynda into the situation, and won a small but significant victory when child services agreed that they could take Olive when they evacuated.
Which was all supposed to happenhoursago.
Tessa blinked back the sting of tears and turned toward the sliver of glass that hadn’t been boarded yet along the Gulf-facing bank of windows.
The horizon was a dark smudge. The palm trees that lined their road were bent, the fronds whipping in a straight horizontal line. The waves were nothing short of treacherous, with warning flags high and straight along the deserted public beach.
